The Visit
Now available to order:
1992. The war rages in Bosnia and Croatia. In Slovenia, which has escaped the war’s horrors on its own soil, a high school graduate finds herself profoundly shattered. Unable to transition from the safe environment of the high school to the loosely structured student life, struggling to come to grips with an unsuccessful relationship and tormented by her helplessness in the face of the war, she embarks on a harrowing search for the meaning of her existence. But the streets of Ljubljana leave her empty-handed. Until something changes. A visitor comes by.
Three Unique Voices, One Vibrant Press: Recent Praise for BlazeVOX [books]
Book Review by Arthur Turfa. Arthur Turfa's Bookshelf, Reviewer's Bookwatch, Volume 25, Number 4, April 2025. The Midwest Book Review.
​
Interview with writer Ana T. Kralj. Lisa Haselton Book Reviews and Interviews, December 16, 2024
​​
The Visit: A Conversation with Ana T. Kralj - curated by Kristina Marie Darling. Tupelo Quarterly (TQ31)
​​
Ana T. Kralj, From The Visit. BlazeVOX 23, Fall 2023.
​
About The Visit
​
Ana T. Kralj is a singular voice in contemporary hybrid writing. As she drifts effortlessly between prose and verse forms, she creates an imaginative topography punctuated by silence, enhanced by a sense of artistic restraint, and complicated by thought-provoking juxtapositions. With a poet's command of imagery and a fiction writer's mastery of narrative, Kralj offers a fully imagined world in The Visit that you won't soon forget. She is a rising star in the world of arts and letters. Brava!
​
--Kristina Marie Darling, Fulbright Scholar & author of Daylight Has Already Come
​
​
Ana T. Kralj’s debut novel thrums with a subtle electricity as it queries the meaning of friendships and family, of love, of what it means to come of age safely – in one’s mind and body. The Visit is interested in liminal spaces and the small, quiet moments that so often harbor the immense landscape of thought. Set against a backdrop of lives fractured by war, The Visit is ultimately a novel of hope and possibility.
– Michelle Bailat-Jones, author of Fog Island Mountains and Unfurled
​
Haunting and evocative. Kralj's careful, economical prose takes us from 1990s Slovenia to the forests of Finland, and follows a young woman's journey trying to make sense of the world. An irresistible read and a story that will stay with me for a long time.
​
– Anita Lehmann, award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction
In The Visit, Ana T. Kralj has created a profound and deftly braided portrayal of what it means to be both fragile and powerful. The interweave of pristine prose and an echoing poem bind the reader with Luna through the barren and lush landscapes of Finland and Slovenia as she navigates the narrows to selfhood. Survival isn’t guaranteed. As Luna deals with the grief of war, the challenges of university life and the complexities of love, friendship and family, she discovers what there is to live for. Kralj gives us space in her writing to map our own story and questions. This is a fully realized and deeply satisfying debut novel.
​
– Carla Drysdale, author of poetry collections, All Born Perfect and Little Venus
​
​
In this impressive first novel, Kralj alternates between prose and poetry as a young Slovenian student named Luna. While Yugoslavia has dissolved into a brutal war between the former republics, Slovenia is rather calm. However, landscape and memories literally brim with memories of previous wars and upheavals.
Readers unfamiliar with this part of the world need to realize that the further east one goes in Europe, the past is never really dead, to quote Faulkner. What happened centuries ago is as vivid as last week's events. Luna is by no means alone in this way; time is blurred here in parts of the novel, Luna's response is unique to her.
The prose contains great details. The camp in Finland where Luna spends part of her summer, the family home, the city of Ljubljana, Luna's descriptions of the university and her solitary walks. Almost in contrast, the poetry is almost laconic and focuses on interior feelings. The paring works extremely well. This is more than a coming-of-age novel. It is the story of a young woman trying to find her way in the world which itself is rapidly-changing and in constant upheaval, just like her emotions.
– Arthur Turfa, The Midwest Book Review. Reviewer's Bookwatch, Volume 25, Number 4 (April 2025).
​​
​​