Mila Evanovich

Mila Completes Second Novel in Wartime Trilogy — Now Seeking Stories History has long forgotten.

 

For some families, war ends with a treaty.
For others, it ends with a pack on their back and no home to return to. And sometimes, it never really ends at all.

Historical fiction novelist, Mila Evanovich has spent the last several years walking beside these families—not only in imagination, but through archives, firsthand testimonies, and long conversations at kitchen tables, over the phone, and on Zoom and Teams meetings, gathering the stories of Yugoslav refugees whose lives were shattered by World War II. Now she has completed the second novel in her sweeping historical trilogy, bringing to life the untold stories of Serbian families torn from their homeland.

The yet-to-be-released sequel continues the journey begun in her debut novel, No Bread Tomorrow, which follows the Nikolić family through wartime occupation and survival in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The new installment plunges beyond the battlefield and into the brutal aftermath of WWII, tracing refugees fleeing on foot through the Italian border in Gorizia, then onward to Displaced Persons camps in Forli, Rimini, Cesena, and Eboli, then to Germany, where thousands who’d already survived war and concentration camps, defied odds once again by being forced behind barbed wire, awaiting a future no one could promise. For Evanovich, these books are not simply historical fiction; they are our people’s blood and sweat on every page. They are stories seldom written down and rarely published. She mines deep, determined that the world finally hear the truths history tried to erase.

“It’s a story about  what happens after the fighting stops,” Evanovich explains. “History often marks the end of war as liberation. But for too many Serbian families, that’s when the real struggle began. Relentless hunger, exile, fear, uncertainty, and the painful question of where is home now? Yet amid the darkness, hope flickered. Proof that someone, somewhere, had not forgotten them: a small miracle of gifts came by way of shipments across the ocean from the Serbian National Federation. Suddenly, after years without, they had a bar of soap, a toothbrush, or a pair of shoes, thanks to the generous support of the ever-faithful SNF.

Drawing on years of archival research and more than twenty one oral history interviews with survivors and their first generation children, Evanovich listened as memories surfaced, illuminating a lesser-known chapter of postwar Yugoslavian history : the experiences of the formidable Četnik/ Royalist Resistance warriors, combatants of the Royal Yugoslav Army, and the First Volunteer Army, who fled Yugoslavia only to find themselves trapped in displaced camps administered by the British Military and UNRRA, with no clear path to freedom.

Yet despite its historical depth, Evanovich says the heart of the story remains intimate. “It’s about fighters forced to give up their trusted weapons. Mothers who scraped together scraps to feed their children. Young men carrying memories heavier than their packs. Sisters clinging to one another, and faith—  the unshakable Serbian Orthodox faith that gave them the strength to endure what should have broken them.”

With the second book now complete, Evanovich has already combed archives, libraries, and institutions, verifying facts, and learning more about the geopolitical landscape surrounding the Yalta Conferences, and how they impacted our people. She now turns her attention to writing the trilogy’s final volume. This work will explore what happened next: immigration, resettlement, and the building of new lives in towns across North America and Australia.

This is where you come in. Evanovich is reaching out to anyone whose parents survived the Displaced Persons camps — particularly those who resided in them before immigrating to the US, Australia, or Canada. “So many of these stories were never written down,” she says. “They live in faded photographs, or in fragments our ancestors shared when we were young. Without them, their voices will be lost. ”

In a significant milestone, Evanovich’s work will now be celebrated in Serbia as No Bread Tomorrow brings the story home to Serbian readers by the team of translation editors at the prestigious publishing house Koraci, which is affiliated with the distinguished Vuk Karadžić Library System in Kragujevac. No Bread Tomorrow will be available in Cyrillic in Serbia this fall.

Evanovich is especially interested in the early immigrant years, memories of  sponsorships, new communities, and first homes. “Every small detail matters,” she adds. “The smell of the camps, the sound of a train, the name of a village, or the friendships forged in these camps. These families carried entire worlds across oceans. If we don’t record their stories now, we risk losing them forever.” Anyone wishing to contribute stories, or speak with Mila is invited to reach out to her directly through this website.