Debut Author Snapshot: Natasa Dragnic

Foreign language instructor Nataša Dragnić speaks Croatian as well as German, French, English, and Spanish. Appropriately, her debut novel, Every Day, Every Hour, will be translated and sold in 20 countries; that's quite a sphere of influence. Born in the seaside city of Split, Croatia, and now a resident of Erlangen, Germany, Dragnić wrote her first book in German, but the plotline follows her origins, beginning on the rocky shores of the Adriatic Sea. Young lovers Luka and Dora meet in kindergarten and promptly become inseparable friends. Their paths diverge when Dora's family moves away, but life throws them together when they connect years later in Paris, where Dora is an up-and-coming actress and Luka a promising painter. This love story questions the durability of passion and whether anything is meant to be.

Dragnić shares with Goodreads some of her inspirations for the novel—in photographs and music.

Goodreads: In Every Day, Every Hour your two lovers meet very young and immediately connect. Were you prone to romance at a precocious age?

Nataša Dragnić: I went to kindergarten when I was five, just to get used to other children and to learn to follow the rules and the routine of the group—my mother did not work, I could have stayed home. I liked kindergarten, of course. And of course I fell in love for the first time. But I wasn't Dora, and he wasn't Luka, and today I couldn't even tell you his name. What did last is a friendship with a boy whose name I more than remember, him still being my best friend. He miraculously fell in love with a woman from Makarska, married her, and lives there now. That's the real life. And then there is fiction.

GR: Dora and Luka seem fated to know each other, and yet they have to face many obstacles in their relationship. What role do you believe fate plays in whom we love and when?

ND: "Fate" is a word I do not like very much. It is heavy with significance, things that supposedly are as they are and cannot be changed. I don't agree with this concept. I believe we all know everything that is to be known about our life. It is in us. It is just that we forget about it sometimes, we lose touch with that knowledge, with our gut feeling. So we need a lot of patience and confidence and faith in ourselves, faith that everything we do makes sense and has meaning, even if we don't understand it immediately. I believe we all have our way, our path that comes from within and is not determined from outside or by some higher power. We are not puppets on the string. We are the ones pulling our own strings, even if we do nothing. That's also a decision. We live to learn. So we decide, without knowing we are doing it, whom we love because this person is going to be the best teacher for our lesson, whatever this lesson is. And I am not saying that those lessons are going to be easy. But we chose them. The lessons and the teachers, that will help us grow and become who we are. That is what I believe.

GR: How did your work on the novel begin? And how did you develop that first idea into a robust story?

ND: The novel originates from a short story I wrote for a writing competition (which, mind you, I did not win). I wrote about two people meeting in a hotel after a long time, what is now basically Chapter 40 in the novel, the opening one [Chapter 40 appears out of sequence]. After I was done with the short story, I couldn't stop thinking about those two people and why what happened did happen. So to be able to understand, I started writing the novel, letting Dora and Luka guide me. And they did a great job. I owe them everything.

GR: As a multilingual person, did you consider writing this book in any other language?

ND: I started learning German when I was 16. I studied it in Zagreb and never ever thought of living in Germany. We had our struggles, German and I, we really did. But then I fell in love with a German guy and found myself in Erlangen, a small city with a big university where you can still find me. From the moment I moved to Germany I began writing in German. It was a decision at that time. And when I was thinking about Dora and Luka and their story and all the whys and what ifs, it all came in German to me. No decision here. It was the most natural thing to do, even if the story takes place in Croatia.

GR: What's next for you as a writer?

ND: I finished my second novel in January. It is a story about three sisters, their parents, affairs, and families, and their relationship to one man in particular, set in Italy, Germany, and the U.S. It will be published in Germany by DVA in spring 2013. At some point I will start a new novel. I have so many stories to tell, stories I have collected for over 40 years—they are very impatient to get to their readers.