Krndija - One Village From Creation To Destruction

About the author

Donna Kremer was born in Dubuque, IA, and moved out on her own to New York at the age of eighteen, where she obtained her license as a New York State Teacher's Assistant through work experience and college credits, but retired early to embark on a writing career.

Having first started her present career at the age of forty-seven, the creation of Krndija has not only been a journey of learning but also one of personal discovery for Ms. Kremer. Indeed the arrival of the Leissners to Krndija at the start of her novel and their departure toward the end is reminiscent of her own new beginnings.

Although Donna Kremer's debut novel is a work of fiction, the village Krndija, Croatia does exist. While vacationing in Europe in 2000, Ms. Kremer visited Krndija for the first time. In recent years, she has traveled to Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary and has made many permanent friends while doing research. She is also a frequent visitor to Iowa and Wisconsin where most of her family still lives.

Besides writing and travel, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends and finds gardening to be a relaxing hobby. More trips to Europe are planned for both research and pleasure, including one to Luxembourg, home to some of her ancestors.

Currently she lives in Rockland County, New York with her husband. Her two adult children live nearby.

Why she wrote the book:

"They say of first-time-authors that the subject chooses the writer, not the other way around. Well, the same is true of me.
It was an elderly relative named Rosi who first planted the seed. Years of listening to her reminiscing about privation of life in eastern Croatia, trying to carve a livelihood out of the land eventually crystallized in my mind, leading to the creation of Krndija.
Still, it was my early years living in the country off a gravel road in rural Iowa that was the starting-point of my understanding of life in a small, mostly agrarian community.
There my family raised chickens, rabbits and cats. In the winter my siblings and I hauled our sleds up a steep dirt road which led away from the barn to the cornfields beyond. In the summer, we worked in the garden, explored the rocky hills to the back of our house, and investigated the shallow stream that wound around the edge of the property.
Back then, becoming a writer never crossed my mind, but a desire to preserve the details of Rosi's childhood and the intriguing events that molded her life have led me to a career that has since become a major part of my life."