Hedgemond is a very determined and stubborn little Hedgehog who loves his home deep in the forest. When invited to dine with the charming Miss Fox at her home in the quarry he is happy to accept. Over the course of the next four hours Hedgemond enjoys delicious food and delightful company, but with a long journey ahead of him, he is soon anxious to be on his way. Despite Miss Fox's protestations and her attempts to persuade him to stay a while longer, Hedgemond is resolved to return to his own cosy home. He must have riches he has to protect thinks Miss Fox so she decides to follow him and find out. As she rushes after Hedgemond, Wolf, Bear and the wild Boar are also eager to know 'why hedgehog so loves his native abode!' so they all follow him in hot pursuit. The trouble is that the other animals of the forest simply don't understand why Hedgemond loves his home so much. Hedgehog's Home by Branko Copic (1915-1984) was first published in Yugoslavia in 1951. Born an ethnic Serb, he was one of the former Yugoslavia's best known and most popular writers for adults and children. This was a story that could be recited by almost every Yugoslav adult and child since it first appeared. Despite the recent Balkan wars it has survived to become part of the culture of the newly formed republics of the early 1990s and the book still remains on the Croatian school curriculum.

'My Rivers' is an event in four cycles: The Loire, The Spree, The Drina and the Beyond the River. The book includes different poetic forms, from long narrative poems to free verse/flash fiction. The style is never overly strict in form, as Sehic always wants this work to be as clear and understandable as possible. It deals with themes of post-war reality and the culture of remembrance in a wider context, along with the tragedy of the Bosnian war seen through larger conflicts and the greater tragedies of the two world wars. The book seeks catharsis, to the extent to which it is possible in a post-conflict society like Bosnia, along with universal themes of intimacy, love, freedom.

Doppelganger consists of two stories that skillfully revisit the question of "doubles" (famously explored by Stevenson, Dostoyevsky and others), and how an individual is perpetually caught between their own beliefs and those imposed on them by society. `Arthur and Isabella' is a story of the relationship between two elderly people who meet on New Year's Eve - a romantic encounter which turns into a grotesque portrayal of the loneliness of old age. The second story `Pupi' - a strange mirror of the first - centres on the life of a man who ends up on the streets and associates only with street-sellers the rhinoceroses in the zoo. Together these tales crate the highly original atmosphere that Drndic t is famous for in all her works.

An unsentimental, forensic account of the breakup of a marriage, told without rancour and with a humanitarian resolution. An exceptional first book.