A bristling follow-on from Belladonna - shortlisted for both the EBRD Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize The formidable Dasa Drndic has created something like a modern-day Homeric narrative of wars that are anything but glorious. In Celia Hawkesworth, she has a translator of genius who shares her vision. It is difficult to suggest a contemporary English-language novel with which to compare it, or one that might even approach its eloquence and daring.