Nina Bunjevac Knihy

The author’s jumping-off point is the myth of Artemis and Siproites, in which a young man is turned into a woman as a punishment for the attempted rape of one of Artemis’s virgin cohorts. Bunjevac’s retelling follows Benny, a sexually deviant man who, coming across an alluring former classmate, concocts an elaborate, disturbing rape fantasy. Inked in her lush, stippled, illustrative style, Bunjevac crafts a gripping, noirish, Nabokovian tale, by turns surreal and harrowing, that turns the male gaze inside-out. Bezimena is both a radical examination of the misconceptions surrounding rape culture and an artistic and psychological tour de force.

The narrative explores the tumultuous history of the Balkans through the author's personal lens, detailing her mother's flight from a fanatical marriage to return to Yugoslavia with her children. The backdrop includes the father's radical Serbian nationalism and his involvement with a terrorist group in Canada, culminating in his accidental death while constructing a bomb. This poignant story intertwines family dynamics with the broader socio-political upheaval of the time, highlighting themes of identity, conflict, and the impact of extremism.