The Seeds of Neoplanta

About the Book

On a perfect summer day in 1941, as the family sets out across the Danube for a trip to their vineyard, to the six-year old the day holds the promise of the summer’s highlight. In her innocence, she is oblivious of the hostile circumstances when crossing country-lines at wartime. From a story within the story she learns that the safe nest of her home was built in a town that has been the battleground of hostile armies through centuries and was the burial ground of thousands who had suffered violent deaths. She has yet to find out that the world of safety is a mirage, that demarcation lines do not separate territories alone, but cut through the core of families, and that people and their cultures are as perishable as seeds that grow from the land. From experience she is about to learn that the line setting apart her paternal Serbian Orthodox from her maternal Jewish relatives will be a non-penetrable separator. The two will meet completely different destinies.

The story’s timeline is from 1941 to 1966. But, since life is like a long cord woven of multiple strands, parables and vignettes offer a glimpse of past events that shaped present circumstances. In the novel’s foreground the family’s story unfolds, accentuating their struggle for life during the war and for decency and success during post war transformations. Some will discover that the former is a battle hard to win, while the latter could be a volatile delusion. The novel also features the story of a town that has been destroyed and rebuilt through centuries and the Serbian people’s historic struggle for survival on ancestral lands. The only certain winners seem to be the earth and the majestic Danube that washes the land.

About the Author

Ksenija Djordjevic was born in Novi Sad just a couple of years prior to the outbreak of WWII, which had uprooted life, as she had known it. A quiet observer, she had committed her impressions to memory. As a young woman she was a devoted student of literature and foreign languages and later pursued a career in teaching, interpreting, translating and producing informative publications and art books. She holds a BA degree from the Belgrade University and an MA in English Literature from the California State University at Hayward. She and her husband, with whom she has raised a daughter and shares a lifetime of love and support, live now in Las Vegas, Nevada.