The eleven stories inSweetlustinterweave feminist critique, intertextuality, and science fiction tropes in an irreverent portrait of our past, present, and future.
In a dystopian world with no men, women are “rehabilitated” at an erotic amusement park. Climate change has caused massive flooding and warming in the Balkans, where one programmer builds a time machine. And a devious reimagining ofThe Sorrows of Young Wertherrefocuses to center a sexually adventurous Charlotte.
Asja Bakić deploys the speculative and weird to playfully interrogate conversations around artificial intelligence, gender fluidity, and environmental degradation. As she did in her acclaimed debutMars, Bakić once again upends her characters’ convictions and identities—and infuses each disorienting universe with sly humor and off-kilter eroticism. Visceral and otherworldly,Sweetlusttakes apart human desire and fragility, repeatedly framing pleasure as both inviting and perilous.
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Asja Bakićis a Bosnian author of poetry and prose, as well as a translator. She was selected as one of Literary Europe Live’s New Voices from Europe 2017, and her writing has been translated into seven languages. Her debut,
Mars, was published in English by Feminist Press in 2019. She currently lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia.
Jennifer Zobletranslates Balkan literature into English. Recent books includeCall Me Esteban(Sandorf Passage 2021), her translation ofZovite me Estebanby Lejla Kalamujić, andMars(Feminist Press 2019), which was selected byPublishers Weeklyfor the fiction list in its RlÓM
![Sweetlust: Stories [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/5/8/5/2_5466183.jpg "Sweetlust: Stories [Paperback]")