A Castle in Romagna

Separated by centuries, extraordinary lives intertwine in this award-winning novel of tragic love, political intrigue, and war.

In 1995, at the height of the Bosnian conflict, a young refugee visits the old Mardi Castle in the north of Italy. There, instead of only experiencing the beautiful fortress and Renaissance frescoes, he becomes enthralled with the story of the tragic fate of poet Enzo Strecci, who spent his last days awaiting death in the castle’s dungeon.

A Franciscan guide, Niccolò, a refugee as well, will illuminate the past in remarkable ways for the curious tourist. The fascinating and moving tale reaches back not only to Strecci’s life—four centuries earlier—and the doomed passion for a woman, politics, and poetry that became his downfall, but also to Niccolò’s own life, love story, and fateful escape from the brutal conflict between Stalin and Tito.

Before the friar’s story is over, three men will be connected, regardless of time and space, by fates aligned by love, betrayal, and politics—and a bittersweet nostalgia for lost home.

Igor Štiks was born in Sarajevo in 1977 and has lived in Zagreb, Paris, Chicago, Edinburgh, and Belgrade. His first novel, A Castle in Romagna, won the Slavić prize for best first novel in Croatia and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for 2006. Earning his PhD at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and Northwestern University, Štiks later published a monograph, Nations and Citizens in Yugoslavia and the Post-Yugoslav States: One Hundred Years of Citizenship. His novel The Judgment of Richard Richter, originally published as Elijah’s Chair, won the Gjalski and Kiklop Awards for the best novel in Croatia and has been translated into fifteen languages. In addition to winning the Grand Prix of the 2011 Belgrade International Theatre Festival for his stage adaptation of Elijah’s Chair, Štiks was honored with the prestigious Chevalier des arts et des lettres for his literary and intellectual achievements.