How I Swam the Stone River

About the Book

Special award Città di Salò, Italy

The book consists of four chapters, which represents four seasons, four rivers, four countries, four cultures.

Author tells us his story. It then calls upon others, without which the author's story would remain imperfect and unappeased. Why, without Mahmoud's story from Egypt he wouldn't be able to understand his own distress. Without the Midle-East Jerusalem he couldn't keep returning to his home, Styrian Jeruzalem, the Jerusalem of his childhood dreams ("In a promised land I dreamt my, I dreamt your dreams"). Without Vesna's destiny he wouldn't have discovered the "frightened cries" of youth. And without Namdzil's and Mongolia's primitiveness and the trial of the Stone River, the symbolic river of all his rivers, which he has already swum, or will yet swim.

Through all these stories run great mythical rivers: the Nile, the Drava; the Moscow and the Stone River. They all run through the poet's heart. Each one of them he has to swim, one way or another. Thus, somewhere deep in his heart, stories flow over and merge into one. At last, the Stone River too, ceases to be an impediment; as the river which Hesse's boatman from Siddhartha, whom the author cites at the beginning and at the end of his book, talks about.

Ivanusa's stories happen in places which are very far away from one another. In spite of that, they offer us no exciting exotic since they tell mainly about human destinies. These are alike and equally soul-stirring at all ends of the world.

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About the Author

Marijan Ivanusa is the fourth child of simple birth, native of Prlekija, viniferous end of East Slovenia. He studied medicine at the University of Ljubljana. After practicing medicine for a year he accepted a post in a prominent Slovenian pharmaceutical company. Since 2007 he has been working as a civil servant.

In his youth he was involved in the theatre. In 1984, he published his first poems. In 2003 his first book entitled How I Swam the Stone River came into the world. The book was a big success, hence its reprint in 2005. In 2008 the book was awarded with the Italian Citta di Salo special award (Premio speciale per la narrativa in lingua Slovena). In 2005 another book of his was published, a novel titled Villa do Abraño – The day before last. The plot tells a story of a woman leaving Italy and her past life behind in search of herself. The novel is a story of love and longing, a story of courage and fear, a story of existence and its denial. Above all, the book is a story of hope and optimism.

Marijan Ivanusa has professional experience in marketing and communication and holds an international certificate of a trainer of neurolinguistic programming. He is also an experienced world traveler, author of several travelogues in different journals.

While working on his third novel, Marijan decided to publish his first book in English sharing it with the non-Slovenian speaking world.