A Letter in a Letter is an epistolary novel built from nearly two years of correspondence between Croatian authors Jasna Horvat and Irena Vrkljan, a leading voice in Croatian autobiographical writing. Letters, quotations, documentary detail, scholarly notes and lyrical passages create an intimate record of reading, memory and artistic exchange.
Writing from Osijek and from her travels, Horvat reflects on academic life, literature, family history and the search for a coherent identity. Her letters move between professional responsibility and creative freedom, everyday experience and encounters with world cultures. Their tone remains personal, observant and often witty.
The correspondence was inspired by Vrkljan’s Letters to a Young Woman. Rather than presenting a simple relationship between mentor and pupil, the novel shows two writers shaping one another through attention, trust and conversation. It is a book about literary friendship, cultural memory and the ways a self is formed in dialogue with another person.