Winner of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize

Longlisted for the German Book Prize

It's the evening before the feast in the village of Fürstenfelde (population: declining), but not everyone is asleep. The local artist, wearing an evening dress and gum-boots, goes down to the lake under cover of darkness. The village archivist is kept awake by ancient tales that threaten to take on a life of their own. A retired lieutenant-colonel weighs his pistol, and his future, in his hand. And eighteen-year-old Anna, namesake of the Feast, prepares to take her place in tomorrow's festival of drinking and dancing, eating and burning.

On this night of misdeeds and mischief, they are joined by a dead ferryman, a hapless bellringer, two robbers in football shirts and a vixen on the hunt as the fantastic, the menacing, and the inexplicable collide in the most surprising ways.

Episodic, impressionistic and whimsical... clever and funny -- Tibor Fischer Guardian Extraordinary... hilarious, poignant, and frightening -- Karen Russell New Yorker Switching among styles with a dancing virtuosity, Stanisic knits a dozen characters into a multi-stranded tissue of gossip, myth and memory... Stanisic makes a dream team with Anthea Bell, who translates with a pitch-perfect ear for every twist and frisk of his German... its sheer versatility of voice and multiplicity of viewpoint mean that this vigil never drags -- Boyd Tonkin Independent Exceptional... cleverly done, and so mesmerising from the off... beautifully written... thought-provoking and energetic Big Issue In its combination of the fantastic, the menacing and the inexplicable, it reminded me of nothing so much as A Midsummer Night's Dream filtered through the uncanny lens of Welcome to Night Vale Elle Thinks The predominant tone is humorous... kindly, joyful and pointing-out-the-absurd humour... Pushkin Press has struck gold WeLoveThisBook A vivid portrait of a day in the life of an ever-changing German village... bewitching... a joy to read -- Rosie Goldsmith RivetingReviews Mesmerising Bookanista

The highly regarded and bestselling author Saša Stanišic was born in 1978 in what was then Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina), and currently lives in Germany. Before the Feast, his second novel, was a bestseller in Germany and won the prestigious Leipzig Book Fair Prize; his award-winning debut How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone has been translated into 30 languages, and is also published by Pushkin Press.