Aleš Šteger’s novel “Absolution” unfolds during the 2012 Carnival season, when the Slovenian city of Maribor was serving as the European Capital of Culture. Set against this vibrant but politically charged background, the story unfolds how a journalist and a dramatist attempt to uncover the identity of the individuals at the heart of a corruption network.

“I Saw Her That Night” tells the story of the life and mysterious disappearance of Veronika, a young eccentric woman from Ljubljana, before and during the Second World War. It is love story and a reflection on war and betrayal, narrated from the perspectives of five different characters.

“Southern Scum Go Home!” is a novel about Marko, a young immigrant from Bosnia who lives in Ljubljana’s Fužine neighbourhood where he hangs out with his friends and plays basketball. But when a fight gets out of hand and he is beaten up by the Slovenian police, events quickly spiral out of control.

“Three Loves, One Death” tells the story of a family’s move from the city to a dilapidated farmhouse in the Slovenian countryside in the early 1990s, following the breakdown of Yugoslavia.

Although 24-year-old Veronika appears to have a perfect life, something is missing, and she takes an overdose of sleeping pills. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a mental hospital, where she is told that the overdose has caused irreparable heart damage and that she has only a few days to live. Surprisingly, she finds freedom in the face of death and insanity.

Egon is a ‘bon vivant’ and writer of trashy romance novels, living in a bleak Yugoslav foundry town near the Austrian and Italian borders (in present-day Slovenia) during the 1980s. When he discovers he used the last drop of his Cartier perfume, a chain of absurd events is set in motion.

Filib Kobal is an Austrian teenager from Slovenian descent who travels to Yugoslavia (modern-day Slovenia) in 1960 to trace the last steps of his older brother Gregor, who went missing while fighting for the Partisans during the Second World War. He takes with him two of Gregor’s books: a notebook from agricultural school and a dictionary in which Gregor has marked certain words. Upon entering Yugoslavia, Filib discovers the joy of being an outsider in a strange land and the transformative power of language.

“Newcomers” tells the story of Lojze Kovačič’s childhood experiences when his family was forced to emigrate to Slovenia. The novel begins with the expulsion of the author’s family from Switzerland in 1938 – the Alpine republic was not keen on residents without a Swiss passport – and recounts their struggles to adapt to life in Slovenia (then Yugoslavia).

“Minuit for Guitar” is based on Vitomil Zupan’s experiences as a guerrilla fighter with the Slovene Partisans, an anti-Nazi resistance movement during the Second World War. The novel is told from the perspective of Jakob Bergant Berk, who recalls his wartime guerrilla fighting against the Germans. It shifts between the 1940s and the 1970s, when Berk, while on holiday in Spain, encounters a former German soldier.