The novel by Aline Apostolska, L'Île Noire de Marco Polo, was presented in Korčula, at the terrace of the Korčula De La Ville Hotel.
Aline Apostolska is a Macedonian-born, French-raised Canadian journalist and author who visits Dalmatia often, and one visit to Korčula made her write her first crime novel.
She has published 40 books in her career thus far, but one time during her visit to Korčula her publisher called her and told her that she should write a crime novel. She was just having a dinner at a well known Korčulan restaurant, Adio Mare, and she saw a large hole beneath the works at the Marco Polo house, which lead her to write a book that has the similar starting point, and takes place (partially) in Korčula.
Her son helped her with the historical references, and of course, the main one was Marco Polo, who lead her from Korčula and Hvar to Mongolia and then to Persia - which takes us back to her Macedonian roots.
The book is, just like all her books, written in French, and unlike some of her other works, has not been translated into English. Unfortunately, none of her books has seen a Croatian edition, and she says that she is just not confident enough in her Croatian to make those translations herself, but hopes someone else will do it and bring her Korčula-based book closer to potential readers in Croatia who can't read French.
The presentation was organized by Kutak knjiga bookshop, the only bookshop currently existing on the Dalmatian islands, whose owner, Joseph le Corre also spoke at the presentation, and hopefully the French-Korčulan connection will find a way to make the thriller by the Canadian author accessible to the people of Korčula, who have shown their interest by attending the presentation.
PS: If you needed an additional reason to attend any event taking place in Hotel Korčula De La Ville near the time of sunset, let us persuade you. This was the backdrop of the presentation:
