As a theme and a setting, Prekmurje is present in a number of contemporary Slovene novels. This contribution analyses four novels by Miško Kranjec and Feri Lainšček: Povest o dobrih ljudeh (A Tale of Good People) and Mladost v močvirju (Youth in the Swamp); and Ki jo je megla prinesla (The Woman Carried in by the Fog) and Ločil bom peno od valov (I Will Divide the Foam from the Waves). I chose the first author because Prekmurje is firmly present in many of his novels and the second because he is the contemporary novelist who has most often thematised this landscape. In his first novel Kranjec referred to Prekmurje as the world by the Mura and adapted it to a fairy-tale perspective, the fantastic and idealised lyricism; in his second as a swamp, presented through realistic images as a poor and cruel area without future. This radical duality is also approached by the two Lainšček novels: the first is set in a swamp where a battle between good and evil is taking place, the second in the world by the Mura, which in spite of realistic images of pre-war Murska Sobota emphasises the magical fatefulness of the river and landscape, as well as Kranjec's triad of goodness-love-beauty.
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