Where You Come From

"Stanišic is exceptionally talented." —Los Angeles Times

Winner of the German Book Prize

Translated from the German by Damion Searls

From the internationally acclaimed author of Before the Feast and How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone comes a prize-winning novel that asks: what makes us who we are?

In August, 1992, a boy and his mother flee the war in Yugoslavia and arrive in Germany. Six months later, the boy's father joins them, bringing a brown suitcase, insomnia, and a scar on his thigh. Saša Stanišic's Where You Come From is a novel about this family, whose world is uprooted and remade by war: their history, their life before the conflict, and the years that followed their escape as they created a new life in a new country.

Blending autofiction, fable, and choose-your-own-adventure, Where You Come From is set in a village where only thirteen people...