Saša Stanišić enters the realm of youth literature with a novel about bullying that takes a particularly interesting perspective: that of someone who witnesses what is happening and must decide whether to intervene or prefer to remain safe. Winner of the German Youth Literature Prize in 2024, Lobo explores friendship, fear, and group belonging with humor, without turning the story into a moral lesson.
The protagonist of Lobo does not want to go to summer camp and has good reasons, at least from his point of view. He is not particularly interested in forest hikes, outdoor activities, or the mandatory bonding that comes with sharing a cabin, meals, and walks with other boys for several days. Mosquitoes and blisters don’t help either. Saša Stanišić utilizes this relatable scenario to introduce Jörg, a classmate of the narrator and a boy who, for some hard-to-pinpoint reason, occupies that role that exists in so many groups: that of the one who never quite fits in.
Jörg is a good artist, knows a lot, and genuinely enjoys the forest and the excursions. These are traits that the protagonist starts to discover as he spends time with him, but they do not prevent other boys at the camp from choosing him as the target of their mockery. They exclude him, humiliate him, and find new ways to remind him that he is not part of the group. The narrator knows this situation because it unfolds before him, and at first, he tries to stay on the sidelines.
There Stanišić finds the viewpoint that makes Lobo more than just another novel about school bullying. The story is not told from the perspective of someone who suffers the aggression directly, nor does it linger too long on analyzing those who perpetrate it. We see it through someone who knows that what is happening is wrong, but also understands that confronting others can have consequences.
Seeing what happens and deciding what to do
The protagonist’s position is uncomfortable precisely because it is easy to see oneself in it. As he gets to know Jörg better, he begins to appreciate his qualities and increasingly becomes upset by the treatment Jörg receives. That does not mean he suddenly becomes his defender. There is a considerable distance between understanding an injustice and acting against it, especially at an age when being accepted by others holds so much importance.
Stanišić skillfully navigates this contradiction and avoids portraying his protagonist as a little hero. Sometimes he is afraid; at other times, he prefers to remain silent, and in some moments, he even feels relieved, although he does not want to admit it, that the mockery is directed at someone else. This ambiguity makes the character believable and allows the novel to raise a question that directly impacts the mechanisms of bullying: around those who aggress and those who suffer, there are often other people who observe, laugh, keep silent, or simply try to remain unnoticed.
Belonging to the group weighs heavily in these decisions. Defending Jörg means risking sharing his fate and ceasing to occupy the comfortable position of someone who does not stand out too much. The novel operates for much of the time in this terrain, without the need to continually explain to the reader what they should think about what they are witnessing.
The wolf of the forest
During camp, a wolf begins to appear in the protagonist’s dreams. This element introduces a disquieting aspect to a story that until then has unfolded in very mundane settings. The forest, the cabins, and the excursions take on another dimension when night falls, and the presence of the animal accompanies the growing tension experienced by the narrator.
Stanišić does not need to clarify too much what this wolf signifies. It can be interpreted as a representation of fear, the threat posed by the group, or that which the protagonist tries to avoid during the day and that returns when he is alone. The image works precisely because it remains open and gains meaning as the story progresses.
Despite the subject matter it tackles, Lobo is not a gloomy novel. There is quite a bit of humor in the narrator’s perspective, especially when he describes the camp, the scheduled activities, the adults around him, and their lack of enthusiasm for enjoying nature. This tone allows the reading to flow lightly and avoids one of the common pitfalls of youth novels that address social issues: that the educational intent ends up overshadowing the characters and the story itself.
The black-and-white illustrations by Regina Kehn also contribute to this atmosphere, accompanying the narrative without becoming merely decorative additions.
A youth novel that goes beyond teenagers
Lobo received the German Youth Literature Prize in 2024 and marks Saša Stanišić’s first foray into literature for young people. Born in the former Yugoslavia in 1978 and residing in Germany since the early 1990s, the author has a well-recognized career in contemporary German literature. Among other accolades, he received the German Book Prize in 2019.
The Spanish edition has been published by Siruela, translated by Alfonso Castelló, and contains 192 pages. It is recommended for readers aged 12 and up, although the age of the reader matters relatively little in understanding the conflict that Stanišić presents. The need to belong to a group, the ease with which one accepts an injustice to avoid problems, and the fear of becoming the next target do not necessarily disappear after leaving school.
Perhaps that is why the novel works better when it moves away from an exclusively educational reading. It can serve, of course, to discuss bullying with teenagers, but its literary interest lies in how it portrays those subtle movements through which a person justifies their silence until that silence becomes difficult to bear.
Jörg is the one who receives the mockery, but Stanišić places the true conflict with the boy who sleeps next to him. During a few days at camp, he will have to coexist with Jörg, with the others, and also with the uncomfortable awareness of witnessing something that is no longer so easy to pretend is not happening.
Book Information
Lobo, by Saša Stanišić. Illustrations by Regina Kehn. Translated by Alfonso Castelló. Siruela Publishing, Las Tres Edades collection. 192 pages.
