Identitet u tranziciji u romanu Beogradski svitac Marine Lalović

This paper explores the concept of authenticity within the hybrid identity portrayed in Beogradski svitac by Marina Lalović. The author presents her hometown, Belgrade, to an Italian readership from a cultural and linguistic distance, shaped by two decades of life abroad. This temporal and spatial gap allows her to transcend monolingual and monocultural boundaries and reflect on her origins with both objectivity and emotional attachment. Drawing on Lalović’s own statement about her desire to portray the city “authentically”, the analysis considers how her bilingual and bicultural identity influences the narrative. Authenticity in the novel is reflected in the depiction of the socio-political atmosphere of the 1990s, interwoven with personal memories and cultural elements such as food, music, humor, and literature. While the narrative contains subjective impressions, factual inaccuracies, and stylistic inconsistencies, these are interpreted as integral parts of a hybrid identity – one caught between two cultures and belonging fully to neither. These hybrid linguistic and cultural expressions offer a reconciliatory space and a form of freedom in which the author chooses to exist. Finally, the paper questions how accessible and appealing this kind of testimony might be to an Italian reader unfamiliar with the described cultural and historical context, considering the text’s fragmented structure and abundance of implicit references.