Croatian Bestsellers

Croatian Crescent comments on the literary fiction sales scene in Croatia.

The bestselling book of 2008, Naš čovjek na terenu, written by Robert Perišić, sold 1904 copies. Only ten books broke the magic number of 1000 copies. Not more than 484 buyers were needed to make Drago Britvić the 20th best selling domestic author of Croatia. Is it safe to say that the Croatian literary scene is dead? Even a world famous Croatian author as Slavenka Drakulić sold no more than 1601 copies of her Frida ili o boli (translated as Frida’s bed) which won her the second place on the ranking. I wonder if the situation in other ex-Yugoslav republics is better or worse.

They also mention the The Secret sold more than 20,000 copies in Croatian translation, which helps for scale maybe. I have no comment. I was just astounded by the numbers.