Head judge Lori Feathers says this about Like a Sky Inside by Jakuta Alikavazovic (translated by Daniel Levin Becker) from Fern Books:
In this evocative novella on memory and art, Alikavazovic's narrator is granted permission to spend the night alone inside the Louvre. Solitary amidst the artwork and her thoughts, she recalls her childhood and the many times she visited the museum with her father, an enigmatic immigrant from Montenegro. "He forged a refined French for himself and took meticulous care of it; in a way, I suppose, it was like wearing a handsome coat. So, despite his accent, he spoke like a book. Like the books I would later write. Or rather it's I who write the way he spoke, the way I believe he spoke." This charming father was obsessed not just with art, but also instances of its theft, something that his daughter finds difficult to understand.The night at the Louvre becomes the narrator's reckoning with her father's legacy and her relationship to her own art as a writer. A beautiful, heartfelt narrative.
