Drago Jancar's Baroque Epic Katarina, le paon et le jésuite Reviewed

Patrick Amine reviews Drago Jancar's novel Katarina, le paon et le jésuite in art press n°361 (November 2009). Jancar, a Slovenian writer born in 1948 in Maribor, was a dissident in ex-Yugoslavia opposed to Tito's regime, sentenced to one year in prison in 1974 for "propaganda in favor of the enemy." He lived in the US from 1985 to 1988 before settling in Germany. The novel, an epic and baroque work, is set during the Seven Years' War in 1756. It opens with a masterful scene: Katarina, a woman of pure emptiness, is surprised by a stranger while a third figure observes. The "peacock" is a man in white, nephew of Baron Windisch, whose father is Katarina's steward. Dreaming of military glory, she joins a pilgrimage to Cologne and Austria with her compatriots. Simon Lovrenc, a defrocked Jesuit, also participates. The three characters develop violent and liberating relationships. Amine praises the book's sensuality and stylistic mastery.