Neon South

Neon South is an off-the-beaten-path Latin American travel narrative that unfolds like a novel, shadowing locals all too aware of how outside influences, from colonialism to globalism, have changed their lives.

From the drug cartel-controlled squares of Mexico to Venezuelan jungles where the outside world threatens traditions, Marko Pogacar absorbs all he encounters with the eyes and words of a poet, finding humor in the absurd and intimacy in despair.

Unexpected similarities surface in the assemblage of these tropical experiences fused together with Pogacar’s memories of living through the dissolution of Yugoslavia: ＂After all, are our customs, our kingdoms, our churches and wars, our arsons and human sacrifices one iota different from the Aztec ones?＂

Marko Pogacar, born in Split, Yugoslavia, is the author of five poetry collections, five books of essays, a short story collection, and a travelogue. He edited the Young Croatian Lyric anthology and is an editor of Quorum, a literary journal, and Proletter, an online magazine for cultural and social issues. He has received many scholarships and residencies, Croatian and international awards for poetry, prose, and essays, and is currently a DAAD fellow in Berlin. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, including the English-language translation of Dead Letter Office.

Mirza Puric is a literary translator working from German and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian. He is a contributing editor of EuropeNow and in-house translator for the Sarajevo Writers’ Workshop. From 2014 to 2017 he was an editor-at-large for Asymptote. He has published several book-length translations into BCMS, including Nathan Englander’s The Ministry of Special Cases, Michael Köhlmeier’s Idylle mit ertrinkendem Hund, and Rabih Alameddine’s The Hakawati.