Jan is a just the usual child, going to school in then 1980s. We get his first bicycle, later his first love, thugs at the school gates, attentive parents and a load of other little things that build our lives, from the early Star Wars episodes to colour TV. The one thing that probably distinguishes him (and his creator) from his piers is an extraordinary imagination. He is called up for his military service just before the break-up of Yugoslavia, at a time when once unimportant things become important – for example the religion of his school friend Elvis’s Macedonian family, or the whisperings about what went on in the forests during the political purges after the Second World War. When the country falls apart, the door to Elvis’s room, a place of bright childhood games, is also closed. In Elvis’s Room is an exceptionally written novel about growing up, and probably the first Slovene novel to, through a personal narrative, convincingly depict the period when Slovenia was of in the process of gaining its independence.