The literary basis of the play is the novel of the same name by Ivo Andric (1892-1975), an outstanding Yugoslav writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. The novel was created in 1944, the time of action covers the first third of the XX century, until 1935. The main character Raika Radakovich is the only daughter of a Sarajevo Serb merchant, dedicates her life to money–grubbing.

I think, what kind of life is this, a life without love, without compassion, empathy, a life spent in obsessive passion for material things, in fear of bankruptcy and ruin that society imposes on us? I think about how capitalism is pushing us into a bottomless abyss. The pursuit of money has become our goal, in fact money has become the goal rather than the means of life and such a life is a fog in which the heart pounds with pain compressed and in which, like the sound of an old clock ticking, the questions echo... Where to?.... Why? 

(Đurđa Tešić, director) 

In the absence of dramatizations of this masterpiece of our literature, for the first time in my life I dared to try to dramatize this story and breathe into it a rhythm and form that seemed to me close and powerful for staging. It is no coincidence that this story is so rarely dramatized, because it is very complex and encompasses an entire life. It is primarily based on the inner experiences, thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, which the narrator, i.e. the writer, masterfully observes and then analyzes and comments on. Because of this, I felt it was important that the narrator's voice, as an objective observer, remain present in the dramatization itself. I started working on this dramatization back in 2009 in a very intensive collaboration with the director Durda Tešić, and she and I created several different revisions. We searched for a story, a form, a style. We waded through Andrić's bravura thoughts and insights to finally arrive at the final staging, which is still open to change and adaptation, because theater is made up of the people who create it, and I am sure that the wonderful team that created the play added many more layers that they needed in the process of creation to tell their story. Theater is this living thing, and dramaturgy is the template that theater artists use to create their world. 

(Vanja Eidus, author of the dramatization)