Description
The Yugoslavs
Book Summary
In the everyday setting of a bar, a waiter desperately seeks help for his wife, who has sunk into a silent sadness. He turns to a customer who has shown a gift for finding the right words. This request triggers a delicate exploration of melancholy, identity, and the search for belonging. While the husband seeks an external solution, his wife traverses the city with a map, searching for a place where those who, like her, were born in a country that no longer exists—Yugoslavia—gather. A work that probes the limits of language to name pain and the possibility of finding a new home.
What is it about?
Juan Mayorga's play, "The Yugoslavs," begins in the intimate and public space of a bar. A waiter, observing a customer's ability to console another, asks him to speak with his wife, who is sinking into a state of sadness and mutism. The waiter trusts that the stranger's words might be the key he cannot find himself to reach her.
Parallel to this, the wife wanders the city with a map in hand. Her goal is to find a place where, as she has heard, people who share a common origin gather: having been born in a country that disappeared, Yugoslavia. This journey is a metaphor for the search for a lost identity and a place to belong. An encounter with a girl who offers her a map in exchange for her own opens up a new possibility of orientation and future. The play thus weaves a reflection on the fragility of bonds, the difficulty of communication, and the need to reconstruct one's own path.
Main themes
- The crisis of communication and the power of language to heal or name pain.
- The loss of identity and the search for belonging following the disappearance of a country or a known world.
- Melancholy and silence as responses to profound loss.
- The fragility of human bonds and the need to find an interlocutor.
Who is it recommended for?
This book is recommended for readers and lovers of contemporary theater who appreciate works of great literary and philosophical depth. It is also for those interested in the dramaturgy of Juan Mayorga, one of the most relevant authors on the current scene, and in stories that explore the human condition, historical memory, and the search for meaning in a transforming world. It is an ideal read for those seeking texts that invite reflection and inner dialogue.
What this book offers
- An intense and moving theatrical experience that addresses universal questions about identity and loss.
- A deep reflection on the power of words and their limits when addressing the suffering of others.
- A powerful metaphor about the search for a place in the world when the map we once knew no longer serves us.
- A work by one of the most awarded and internationally recognized contemporary playwrights in the Spanish language.
Technical specifications
- Author: Juan Mayorga
- Publisher: EDICIONES LA UÑA ROTA
- Language: Spanish
- Topic: Plays, theatrical texts, modern and contemporary fiction
- Collection: Libros robados
- Binding: Paperback
- Publication date: December 2025
- Number of pages: 112
- Weight: 123 g
Editorial assessment
"The Yugoslavs" is a work that confirms Juan Mayorga's mastery in constructing short pieces of exceptional density and beauty. The play stands out for its ability to unfold a universe of meanings regarding memory, uprooting, and the difficulty of connecting with others, all from a minimal and everyday situation. The parallel structure between the waiter's plea and the wife's search generates a contained and deeply moving dramatic tension. It is a text that will strongly resonate with readers sensitive to questions about identity and belonging in a world of borders and vanishing countries. A valuable acquisition for any contemporary theater library.