The Cuckoo's Song

Award-winning author Amra Pajalić showcases her gritty, poignant and sometimes bruising voice in this eclectic short story book of previously published and prize-winning stories. Featuring powerful and moving stories of family dissolution, deprivation of war, tenderness of family and the heart-rending experiences of mental illness. Thriller stories with a twist of vindictiveness and retribution, and love stories that make the heart sing, this collection will delight and entertain.

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The Cuckoo’s Song-Francesca is ten years old when the gypsy fortune-teller told her the day and the hour of her death and she has been waiting since.

Fragments-Seka and her brother forage for books in a bombed-out school in Srebrenica during the Balkan war.

Friends Forever-Two lifelong friends share a room at a nursing home, as well as a secret or two.

School of Hardknocks-Amina is a new high school student after migrating from Bosnia and struggles to acclimate to the Aussie way of life.

Woman on Fire-A young girl lives with her mother’s boyfriend when her mentally ill mother is admitted into hospital.

'So devastatingly real' Maxine Beneba Clarke

​Nervous Breakdown

'Rebellion is fuelled by the cultural disconnect between themselves and their migrant parents.' Sydney Morning Herald

Siege

'A powerful and moving story of family dissolution and the suffering, deprivation and terror of war.' Australian Book Review

'Amra Pajalić’s Bosnian Diary is a masterpiece of broken elegy.' Bulletin Review

Flirty Eyes

'Interesting' and 'original' writing. Australian Book Review

'Marvellous' and 'brisk' writing. Rip it Up Review 

The Cuckoo's Song Trailer

The Cuckoo's Song Tropes

Complication Short Stories

In this gripping and gut-wrenching short story collection, Pajalic depicts working-class characters in all their gutsiness and glory. Featuring animals in most stories as a motif for grief and hope, Pajalic alternates between tender stories of survival and the gritty underbelly of Melbourne’s Western suburbs. Even when his characters are shady and flawed, morality and conscience shine through.

Drawing on his own experiences, Pajalic recreates first-hand the reality of coming to Australia as a refugee because of war and persecution. The stories here alternate between tender tales of survival and explorations of the gritty underbelly of Melbourne's western suburbs. Gripping and gut-wrenching, the collection tells the universal story of homesickness, loss, grief, cultural shock, and making a home in a new and challenging landscape.

'Raw, authentic and compelling, these stories of refugees' generational trauma and pain also honour the resilience and determination of the characters. Bracing and rewarding reading.' Paddy O'Reilly author of Other Houses

'Reminiscent of Carver, Pajalic’s stories are sharp, direct and austere. A fascinating read.' Ennis Cehic author of Sadvertising

'Like Chekhov who thinks that for a writer nothing should be unclean, Fikret takes us to murky places where English is broken and pit bulls are prized; bodies are ravaged by manual labour and generosity abounds as often as brutality. Humanity there is uncovered, revealing itself to be as instinctual and capable of ferocity and sacrifice as the many animals that populate Fikret’s stories. In Complication Fikret uncovers the origins of violence with unflinching insight and unwavering compassion.’ Lee Kofman author of The Writer Laid Bare

'In Complication Pajalic uses his talents to explore the limits of everyday humanity, or the lack thereof.' GoodReading

Complication Trailer

Complication Tropes