When Vladan Borojevic googles the name of his father Nedeljko, a former officer in the Yugoslav People's Army, supposedly killed in the civil war after the decay of Yugoslavia, he unexpectedly discovers a dark family secret which recollects the events of 1991 when he first heard the military term deployment and his idyllic childhood came to a sudden end. Seventeen years later Vladan's discovery that he is the son of a fugitive war criminal sends him off on a journey round the Balkans to find his elusive father where he also finds out how the falling apart of his family is closely linked with the disintegration of the world they used to live in. The story of the Borojevic family strings and juxtaposes images of the Balkans past and present, but mainly deals with the tragic fates of people who managed to avoid the bombs, but were unable to escape the war.

The Fig Tree is a novel composed of the intertwining stories of the family of Jadran, a 30-something who tries to piece together the story of his relatives in order to better understand himself. Because he cannot understand why Anja walked out of their shared life, he tries to understand the suspicious death of his grandfather and the withdrawal of his grandmother into oblivion and dementia. With all his might, Jadran tries to understand the departure of his father in the first year of the war in the Balkans as he also tries to comprehend his mother, with her bewildering resentment of his grandfather, and her silent disappointment with his father. The Fig Tree is a multigenerational family saga, a tour de force spanning three generations from the mid-20th century through the Balkans wars of the 90s until present day. Vojnovic is a master storyteller, and while fateful choices made by his characters are often dictated by the historical realities of the times they live in, at its heart this is an intimate story of family, of relationships, of love and freedom and the choices we make.