Bojana
Publisher: Koco Racin Skopje, MACEDONIA
Published: 1953
Place of publication: SKOPJE  MACEDONIA
Description: SHORT STORIES
Table of contents: title: "Bojana" is the first published collection of Ivan Tocko's short stories. Bojana is a young Macedonian woman, married only for 2 months when her husband Krste leaves for America as a migrant worker. Macedonia has a long tradition of people migrating to find work, leaving behind families - parents, wives, children. After 22 years of work in America Krste returns home with a pile of gold coins, tired and worn out, Bojana too is middle-aged, equally worn out and sad, her little boy died, youth has gone, there are no traces left of the young couple from the beginning of the tale, both of them shadows of their young selves. She curses the gold, it cannot bring back lost dreams, youth and happiness. The story "The Master Tradesman" deals with the dramas on a building site, where migrant village workers who come to big cities work, underpaid, overworked, trying to get builders' qualifications and make a living, among them 19-year old Vele. Both stories were published in later collections.