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Karasevdah
About the story
You have reached the home page of Karasevdah, a fantastic story set in Bosnia. All material here, including the front-page photograph, is copyright material as set forth in the conditions below.
The story of Karasevdah unfolds over six days during the Austrian occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1908. In Part One, a mountain chieftain murders a neighbour and his household. Confronted by his family, he confesses, but is unable to explain his actions. Believing himself to have been possessed by his dead brother’s spirit, the man embarks on a dream-quest through unseen realms and other times to ravel out the roots of his crime, while his kindred attempt to buy him time by stalling both the Austrian authorities’ investigation and the blood-vengeance demanded by tradition. The Austrians too, in their time in the village, find themselves becoming irretrievably entangled in the society over which they are asserting authority, while their presence ignites smouldering resentments between Croat and Serb clans.
In Part Two, the funerals of the victims stir up latent political and social forces. Open conflict erupts over the man’s arrest during a village gathering, while some of the concerned villagers and Austrians are forced to confront their own backgrounds and motivations. As the characters are faced with choosing sides and armed conflict looms, matters move swiftly toward a treachery-ridden climax--which involves a challenge to the nature of reality itself, as well as regional politics on the eve of the wars of 1912-1918.
This work is best described as a Balkan-Gothic novel of occult suspense. I do not pretend to be talking about Bosnia today, although I have put years of research into creating a plausible description of Bosnia as it might have been, or, better, could have been, a hundred years ago. (I have slightly shifted one or two historical events in their timing, for the purpose of plot facilitation.) The chief purpose behind what I have done—and how I went about it—was to provide a “prequel” for characters I have written about elsewhere. This determined the locale, the setting in time, and other major factors. In this aspect only—not as literature--Karasevdah bears comparison with J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion, which also was composed by fits and starts over many years, also for the author’s private use as a foundational reference to a world he had created in other works. Karasevdah probably suffers from defects similar to those pointed out by critics of the other work. I have not yet commercially published any of those other stories, though I may do so, especially if Karasevdah finds acceptance, and I may write more about the same characters, especially now that I know where they come from.
About the author:
C. A. Olsen lives in the Northwestern United States. He works a little, drinks a little, and contemplates the great Void. He has written before, and may write again.
author's email:
dedicated to Julia Clay
Copyright 1989, 1995, 2004 by C. A. Olsen
NOTICE: This file contains copyright material. Download or reproduction of the whole, or any portion, for private use is permitted, provided that this title page, with this notice, is included. Download or reproduction for commercial use without the author's written permission is prohibited, will be prosecuted, and will incur the personal curse of a man who knows how to do it.
cover.html"In truth, the human condition is staggering. The shape of a man's life is not given or imposed on him as are those of the stars and the trees. Man has to choose his own being at each instant. He is perforce free. Yet his freedom of choice means that, while man feels an inner necessity to choose the best, what this best may be is not itself something that is his to decide."