Hamsin 51
The novel Hamsin 51 (1993) is one of Dragan Velikić's early highlights – a spectacular family saga and anti-war work written in the midst of the breakup of Yugoslavia, with an ending that will take place three decades later – in 2022.
The title alludes to the hamsin (a warm, desert wind from the south), a symbol of chaos and change. The plot spans time: it begins in 1972 when poet Nikola Gavrić finds the manuscript of his father Žarko Gavrić, an undergraduate law student who is searching for traces of Dositej Obradović and Njegoš in Italy. This search opens up layers of family history, identity, and intellectual wandering.
The main part is set in the early 1990s: Belgrade is once again a post-war city, full of gray ruins, weeds growing through cracks (e.g., the Turkish Baths, Nebojša Tower). The novel follows the intellectual emigration caused by the collapse of the SFRY – displaced lives, exile, loss of home, and national madness. Velikić boldly projects the ending in 2022 – a futuristic view of the scattered destinies after three decades of transition, war, and calm.
The untamed storytelling spirit connects different historical moments, memories, anticipations and the main character's poem into a solid whole. The psychological pulse is accompanied by a filigree chiseled sentence – a mixture of real and imagined, generated by the inextricable reality of war.
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