First edition issued in June 1994.
The 32nd legal edition in sale

ABOUT THE BOOK

     IVA is an amorous and esoteric novel, but it is also an attempt to find the purpose of human beings and their existence. The story consists of two parts, each describing a particular life.
    Iva is a noble girl from Dubrovnik, while Bogdan is a knight at Duke Lazar’s castle. They met and fell in love, first in their dreams, later in a real world of middle-age town of Dubrovnik. They had separated when Bogdan decided to betray his beloved maid so that he would not not betray his religion and fatherland.
    Their wounded souls searched for one another for six centuries. They had found each other, this time as Iva and Dane. Also, this time their meeting was not only In Dubrovnik, but also in the town of Krushevac. However, at that time both of them were enmeshed in different love affairs. Yet, they recognized each other and completed their story. They returned what they owed both to themselves and others.
    What is love? Is it a ruthless competition? Passion and fear faced with defeat? Is it tenderness? Or complete understanding?
    Does revealing the segments of our past lives give us an answer to the question who we are and what are we doing on this Earth? Can it explain the purpose of existence of each one of us?
    Do souls move from one body to another? Or, is the grave, as great Victor Hugo put, just a celestial wardrobe?
    Heroes of Iva novel are trying to find answers to these questions?
    They are not the only ones searching for them.

PREVIOUS EDITIONS

FOREIGN EDITION

Greece KEDROS 2004.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

    Golden bestseller, recognition by Radio Television of Serbia and daily paper Novosti, for one of the ten best  selling books in 1997.

REVIEWS – ABSTRACTS

     In the genre of love novels, not hiding elements of autobiographical stories, in the space in which the easiest is to slip into the world of singularity and banality, Habjanovic usually manages to elevate and enrich the story, to inject her tone of generality, esoteric fluidity, fantastic reality, life in the historic and cosmic time.

                                                                                                          (Ljiljana Shop)

     What makes the special charm of this novel is that it will be read with equal pleasure and with a broad readership and the literary gourmet.

(Djordje J.Janic)

QUOTE FROM THE BOOK

     Iva!
     For the very first  time I realized that she really exists was  in the late spring of 1957. I do perfectly clearly remember of every detail of that seemingly quite ordinary afternoon. A mother who sit and read something (“The game of glass beads”, I think), my younger brother Gile, our friend Dragan and I wrapped up the game, nice antique and cosy hot kitchen in my mommy's home - all as always, and yet,  somehow ineffable, surreal, otherwise to me. The air was motionless, lukewarm and thick, intoxicating with saturated, unusual smell. However, with my modest teenager experience recognized it, because it smells like the white flower, whose name I do not know and  I've never seen, but latterly I often dream about.
     As time passes, it seems to me that everyone around me takes on a soft contours, that the entire room is blinking, furniture and people are floating and spilling in the stains. However, I'm not afraid. On the contrary, from somewhere I was sure that nothing of that was a coincidence, that all that were the hints of something inevitable and vitally important, and I was playing carelessly, almost not participating. I was awaiting.
     At dusk arrives aunt Mira, Dragan's mother. Breathless from the heavy burden of his enormous belly and the radiant with hope that a bearing child will be a girl.
     - But not any girl, outlines she,  but cuddly, lively and clever as Iva.
     -  Iva!  Exclaim my mother and I at the same time, and then, each of us for himself, continuing with a various sentences.
     -  Iva, what a strange name! - Wonders the mother.
     -  Just  imagine, she gave it to herself as soon as he could speak. She did not react to her  name given during a baptism. They tried also with a nickname, but nothing. They tried with a punishments and by the bribery, but she persistently and stubbornly was  repeating: Iva, Iva, Iva. Now, apart from parents, grandmother and uncles, no one knows what is her actual name. For all, she  became Iva.
     -   Really strange child – my mother confirmed. - I'm not sure that I would just like she is mine.
     -  Iva,  I was repeating for who knows how many times, and all the louder. I stood up, left Gile and Dragan, and with my raised head, I  look into my mothers and aunt Mira's face.
     -  Iva has a hole in the cheek when she smiles, white dress of silk and brocade and  a hanging curls.
     -  You guess it! Said aunt Mira, simple - minded in her joy. My mother does not share her enthusiasm. Motivated by my extraordinary, almost sick sensitivity, the mother closely monitored , as of  my earliest childhood up to coming into the school, and sought to introduce, up to the smallest details, my way of  thinking and all my experiences. Therefore, she should be trusted, and she is still convinced and claims that, at that time, I couldn't  know either about a dress of silk and brocade or about her hanging curls. Usually being untrusted and cautious, she looked at me very carefully, and I clearly felt that my mother was overcome by an unpleasant foreboding, obviously worrying while asking:
     - Who is that child, anyway?
     - You know for sure, a little girl from Jaksic street,  her father is playing with my Djoko, aunt Mira was explains eagerly.
     - Oh, yes, that one which father was from  Zagreb! - Recalled the mother, and her anxious, troubled look still was shivering on my face.
     At that time, of course, I didn't  know Iva,  I didn't  know what Zagreb means, but somehow, inspired by an unexpected knowledge and  lucidity  (in that afternoon everything was possible!), I do not  only feel, but I do precisely formulate the thought that it  is perfectly crazy to explain someone, such as Iva, and present with a such meaningless sentence: Oh, yes, that one which father was from  Zagreb!
     However, it was only the beginning, I was constantly convinced myself in the forthcoming years. In the remarks of my parents' friends, in discussions of Iva and my friends, in the stories of our teachers - with some obligatory moral (Iva and I we attended  the same high school), in the retelling of our supposedly non interested fellow citizens, Iva's  name,  whatever the occasion was for mentioned, was always accompanied by some additional entries, some essential comment. Therefore, Iva  was:
     That small one whose father was from Zagreb,
     Miss arrived from Zagreb, no?
     Pumpkin,  presuming to write a poetry,
     Poor one whose mother's died,
     A schoolgirl who won the awards,
     An  idle one, that pulls the three books from the library and sit in all the literature evenings, foolish one that always wears black and like to have her away either, all in the house had  died,
     A silly one,  that's always wearing everything in black, like to have had all in the house died,
     An insolent one,  who fell in love with her professor of mathematics and even more, rather       than to remain silent and hide the shame, she writes a songs to him,
     A fantasy one, thinking she will be a writer.
     All these comments, more or less appropriate, however were shallow, empty and simplified, with no power to explain, or at least show the complexity, substance and reality of Iva's being,  were not without some significance. Thus sorted, they all clearly show that Iva has disturbed and confused the society, that she was continually different from all others and,  until her departure from Krushevac, she remained so obviously different from the others. So wantonly, so excitingly different. Yes, so wantonly different, but the relentlessly alone, I felt unmistakably,  when I saw her first time.
     It was the beginning of June 1966. A spring, early afternoon. My mother sent me to take caces to mommy. At the main crossroad of town, in front of the monument to Kosovo`s heroes, I saw her. Although we never met before, and she looked completely different than in my langsyne dreams, I immediately knew that it was she – Iva.
     I've seen:
     Three priests in ceremonial vestments, keep  opened  prayer and quietly whispering  some incomprehensible words in old Slavic language.
     Four-synchronized horses patiently pulling a big, black, rectangular, completely closed coach  with glass sides. Between spaced black velvet curtains, I've seen a  fascinating pall of oak, richly dressed the yellow metal ornaments and carving. Iva's grandmother, completely crushed in pain, was simply hanging  on the arms of two of her sons.
     Column of the people behind them is  moving in perfect order, as per the rules of a long practiced, impeccable choreography, in dignity and quietly.
     Iva is not relying on anyone. And no one is holding her. Her closest have  known even then: Iva can stand all the  pains, Iva can stand even this pain all alone.
     Tiny girl,  in a black dress like the student's apron, with black scarf of synthetic on the head, was moving calmly, keeping pace and fully comply with the ceremonial parade walk. It appears to be  perfectly fitted into the composition of that dark, touching  image. But in fact, even then, she  clearly stood out.
     By someone's inexplicable and certainly undeserved grace (by God's mercy, Dane! "She would say it) I saw real  Iva. The vision was incredible short, but perfectly clear and distinct: Iva was  surrounded by metallic gray, shiny, icy layer. And, as if someone wanted generously to give me a present, to repare me favorably for an already existing future, although not known to me, suddenly I was permeated by an idea: Iva exists, alternately ate up and  fed by her  cruel loneliness.
     I have not received a gift. I never even wondered why it was just offered to me. Touched uncomfortable, almost afraid of  a sudden facing with grief  and loneliness, I quickly turned my head to the other side and hurried, almost ran, to escape as soon as possible, to move away from the reality of what I did not know.
     My childhood was a joyous  and protected.
     My grandfather was a  labor tribune long before the war . As the memory of the revolutionary youth and a clash  with a police,  he has a broken leg. Grandfather dragged it with pride, as this huge, although inappropriate, but precious decoration, and rough nickname "limping Ljuba" was perceived as a rank, as the degree of his nobility. Because the leg,  grandfather was not partizan, but supported them from the background. His favorite daughter, my mother, joined a Rasina`s partizan detachment  already in August 1941. at the very beginning of the uprising. She returned with five medals, including the Order of National Hero. My father had no decoration. However, his reputation has grown, from year to year,  as he advanced  from one to another, still higher office. The position of my family has provided to me and to Gile a privileged status among the peers,  and for many years, thanks to him, all the doors were opened in the city to us.
     Why God, if He is really the generous giver, didn't give us a gift of wisdom and strength, to recognize His value and secret meaning? Why the choice is left to our imperfect mind, loaded with everyday routine and wishes? Why He allow us to make mistakes? - I wondered who knows how many times.
     - So that we learn to listen to God inside of us – it would be said by Iva,  who knows.
     What would have happened if I was fully opened to Ivo for this new knowledge back in the summer of sixty-six? Would the future, would my life, would the lives of us all, be different? I do not know. And it's not my only concerns, not only shiver about  Iva. Convulsive, senseless and  inexplicable attraction, unmotivated fears and dramatic, humiliating escapes, already for long have been imprinted in our souls. With secrets and dreams, love and pain, Iva and I are tied up for centuries already.