Sweetlust


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Praise for Sweetlust
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Contents
 1998
 Gretel
 Blindness
 Fellow’s Gully
 1740
 Mama
 The Abduction
 Δάϕνη, or Daphne
 MCSB
 Dorica Kastra
 The Sorrows of Young Lotte
 Translator Acknowledgments
 About the Author and the Translator
 Also Available from the Feminist Press
 More Translated Literature from the Feminist Press
 About the Feminist Press
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Contents
 1998
 Translator Acknowledgments
 Start to Contents
 
 
 
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 Praise for Sweetlust
 
 “Vivid yet nuanced, mysterious and sexy, each one of Asja Bakić’s stories creates its own dangerous universe. This miraculous collection enraptured me again and again.”
 –CHANA PORTER, author of The Seep
 “Haunting, funny, and delightfully surreal, Sweetlust pushes fiction into exciting and unexpected realms of imagination. A visceral dive into the perils and pleasures of the human condition.”
 –ADITI KHORANA, author of The Library of Fates
 “In Sweetlust, Asja Bakić takes on gender, society, literature, climate change, and time travel with such extraordinary ease that one might be fooled into believing such mastery is easy. The narrative is quick and sharp while, almost deceptively, shedding strange and revelatory light on some of the most intimidating subjects of our age. Evocative of the work of Joyce Carol Oates and Leonora Carrington, Asja Bakić—aided by a brilliant translator—delivers a perfectly discordant punch to the gut of matters few dare touch. Truly fearless writing strikes real fear in the heart of a reader, and in this way, Sweetlust is a truly frightful book, and Asja Bakić a singular terror.”
 –LINA FERREIRA CABEZA-VANEGAS, author of Don’t Come Back
 “Sweetlust rollicks and seethes with a rakish energy, part hilarious, part bone-chilling. Translated brilliantly by Jennifer Zoble, these stories zip back and forth across the centuries. Never a dull moment!”
 –ELLEN ELIAS-BURSAĆ, translator
 
 
 
 Sweetlust
 
 Stories by Asja Bakić
 Translated by Jennifer Zoble
 
 
 
 Published in 2023 by the Feminist Press
 at the City University of New York
 The Graduate Center
 365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
 New York, NY 10016
 feministpress.org
 First Feminist Press edition 2023
 Sladostrašće copyright © 2020 by Asja Bakić
 English translation copyright © 2023 by Jennifer Zoble
 Sladostrašće was first published in 2020 in Zagreb, Croatia, by Sandorf Publishing.
 All rights reserved.
 
 This book was made possible thanks to a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
 No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 First printing February 2023
 Cover design by Sukruti Anah Staneley
 Photo by Siim Lukka on Unsplash
 Text design by Drew Stevens
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Bakić, 
 
 Contents
 
 
 Cover
 Praise for Sweetlust
 Title page
 Copyright
 Contents
 1998
 Gretel
 Blindness
 Fellow’s Gully
 1740
 Mama
 The Abduction
 Δάϕνη, or Daphne
 MCSB
 Dorica Kastra
 The Sorrows of Young Lotte
 Translator Acknowledgments
 About the Author and the Translator
 Also Available from the Feminist Press
 More Translated Literature from the Feminist Press
 About the Feminist Press
 
 
 
 
 1998
 
 SHE’D PLANNED TO stay home with her mother that summer until her father and sister returned from the European Junior Table Tennis Championships in Italy. Instead she spontaneously took a bus trip to Jablanica Lake with her friend Anida. Anida’s mother was the secretary to the director of the postal service and sent them to a summer camp organized for the children of its employees. She was sixteen. She brought a two-piece bathing suit, teen angst, and the novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé. She was looking forward to a perfect summer.
 When she got off the bus, she realized she’d be sharing a tent with at least six other girls, which didn’t