The paper analyzes and interprets Nevenka Nekić's historical novel "Jean or the Smell of Death". The novel deals with the final months of Jean-Michel Nicolier, a young French volunteer who fought for Croatia in the Homeland War. The first part of the paper sheds light on the historical context behind the events of the war in which Jean, the protagonist, finds himself. The novel is set in the Fall of 1991 in wartime Vukovar. The paper examines Jean's experiences, dichotomies present in the novel, as well as certain motifs, metaphors and their symbolic meaning. In doing so, those motifs are brought into relation with actual events that transpired in Vukovar in 1991 and descriptions given in other works of Croatian wartime literature depicting the Battle of Vukovar. Particular attention is given to intertextual connections to the Bible, as well as to the methods of depicting atrocities whose uniqueness and universality are emphasized. The paper also interprets the way in which the author related and connected with the novel's protagonist, who, through his humaneness and sacrifice, transcends his national identity and becomes ours. The final part of the paper contains a questionnaire and overview of two classes in which the novel was discussed with fourth-year students in two Zagreb gymnasiums in April and May of 2019.