Non-Oui
In her youth, the Croatian grandmother Nedelka, nicknamed Non-Oui, fell in love with an Italian soldier, and after the end of World War II, she followed him to Sicily. Years after that, her death marked the beginning of a tense and exciting journey for her granddaughter, named after Nedelka. A journey into the past, through her own memories and memories which have been told her, motivated by her desire to penetrate the essence of a dramatic and pervading human history.
Built as a diary, the novel flows freely through the layers of time and space - the birth of fascism and its collapse in Italy, the occupation of Croatia, post-war Sicily ... These traumatic events are the political background against which the story of a great, enduring love unfolds.
This project has been funded with support from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Commission.
Lidija Dimkovska
Lidija Dimkovska, born in Skopje, now resides in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she works as an author and translator of Slovenian and Romanian literature in Macedonian. She has published seven poetry collections, four novels for adults, one novel for children and young adults, an American diary and one short story collection, and has edited four anthologies. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages. Her novels Hidden Camera and A Spare Life both received the Association of Writers of Macedonia’s Stale Popov award; the latter also received the European Union Prize for Literature in 2013 and was nominated for the BTBA in the USA. Her novel Non-Oui was shortlisted for the Stale Popov award as well as for the Balkanika Prize and longlisted for ALTA Award in the USA. Her latest novel for adults Personal Identity Number received both the Novel of the Year Award in North Macedonia and the regional Štefica Cvek award for feminist literature from the Western Balkans, while Dimkovska herself was named Author of the Year at the 2024 Skopje Book Fair and so far has four editions in Macedonian, being translated or in process of translation in Slovenian, Croatian, Italian, Serbian, Urdu, Greek itc. Her first novel for children and young adults “The Thirteen¨ (2025) has been shortlisted for the Association of Writers of Macedonia’s Vanco Nikoleski award. Dimkovska’s poetry has also received numerous awards and she has participated in many festivals, readings and residencies.
