The Tree with No Name

A diary recounting four decades' worth of sexual exploits, the memoir of a mental institution attendant, and a familiar-looking bicycle dredged out of a river--the discovery of these artifacts sends an archivist on an obsessive quest to discover their owners' identities and fates. Shifting between Slovenia's postcommunist present and its wartime occupation by the Axis, "The Tree with No Name" might well be Drago Jancar's masterpiece: a compelling and universally significant story of an individual confronting the constraints on truth set by his--and every--culture.