Dora and Luka are inseparable: ever since he fainted at the sight of her - walking into the classroom with her new schoolbag - and she woke him with a chaste kiss, it has been love at first sight. 'There's something in the air when the two of them are together. You can't call it calm, you can't call it storm.' Theirs is a friendship made of chocolate and mandarin oranges; of shape-shifting clouds and coloured canvases; and, as Dora's family leave Croatia for Paris, of farewells and memories.

It is not until years later, when a promising artist faints at the familiar sight of a young actress entering a Parisian gallery on his opening night, that Luka and Dora are reunited. But just as chance brings them together, fateful choices and forces bigger than themselves conspire to keep the couple apart. Will they ever truly be able to find or forget one another?

Bursting with drama and ardour, at turns heartbreaking and exhilarating, and told with the same overwhelming intensity as the bond it describes, this is a dazzling tour de force of a very special love affair.

Translated by: Liesl Schillinger