My Father’s Dreams: A Tale of Innocence Abused, is a controversial and shocking novel by Slovenia’s bestselling author Evald Flisar, and is regarded by many critics as his best. The book tells the story of fourteen-year-old Adam, the only son of a village doctor and his quiet wife, living in apparent rural harmony. But this is a topsy-turvy world of illusions and hopes, in which the author plays with the function of dreaming and story-telling to present the reader with an eccentric ‘bildungsroman’ in reverse. Spiced with unusual and original overtones of the grotesque, the history of an insidious deception is revealed, in which the unsuspecting son and his mother will be the apparent victims; and yet who can tell whether the gruesome end is reality or just another dream….
This is a novel that can be read as an off-beat crime story, a psychological horror tale, a dream-like morality fable, or as a dark and ironic account of one man’s belief that his personality and his actions are two different things. It can also be read as a story about a boy who has been robbed of his childhood in the cruelest way. It is a book which has the force of myth: revealing the fundamentals without drawing any particular attention to them; an investigation into good and evil, and our inclination to be drawn to the latter.
Evald Flisar is a novelist, playwright, essayist, editor and seasoned traveller. Flisar was president of the Slovene Writers’ Association from 1995 – 2002, and since 1998 is the editor of the oldest Slovenian literary journal Sodobnost (Contemporary Review). He is the author of eleven novels, two collections of short stories, three travelogues, two books for children and fifteen stage plays. Winner of the Prešeren Foundation Prize, the highest state award for prose and drama, the prestigious Župančič Award for lifetime achievement, three awards for Best Radio Play, and many more.