Fiction

The Little Red Riding Hood

Mare is a con­ser­va­tive, pious girl living with an ill mother in a small fishing vil­lage in the vici­nity of Zadar. On a frosty winter mor­ning, her mother sends her to Zagreb with a gift for an elderly cousin who helped her when she needed medi­cal treatment.

Olga is a reti­red pro­fe­ssor of bioc­he­mis­try, an ex-concentration-camp pri­so­ner and a former par­ti­san fig­h­ter. She lives alone in her Zagreb flat, waiting for the arri­val of her young cousin.

Vinko is a Zagreb taxi-​driver, and in his spare time an antique dealer. He visits lonely elderly ladies, extor­ting sil­verware and pain­tings in order to sell them. Howe­ver, he isn’t making much money, and is deep in debt, the loan-​sharks pur­su­ing him.

These three cha­rac­ters are the heroes of the modern ver­sion of Char­les Perrault’s and Brothers’ Grimm famous fairy-​tale. Howe­ver, this Crven­ka­pica is a story of tran­si­tion capi­ta­lism. It is a story of two gene­ra­ti­ons of Cro­atian women, as well as a story of the all-​European rela­ti­on­ship between the domi­nant North and the passive, neglec­ted South.