Serbian Literature – serie

Written between 1980 and 1986, the six stories that constitute "The Lute and the Scars" (as well as an untitled piece by the author, included here as "A and B") were transcribed from the manuscripts left by Danilo Kiš following his death in 1989. Like the title story, many of these texts are autobiographical. Others resurrect protagonists belonging to Kiš's fellow Central European novelists, allowing readers to identify, perhaps, depending on the level of obfuscation, fantasy, and historical accuracy, figures dreamed up by ?d?n von Horv?th and Endre Ady ("The Stateless"), by the Yugoslavian Nobel laureate Ivo Andric ("Debt"), and by Piotr Rawicz.Against a background of oppressive regimes and political exile, readers will find that the never-ending debate between death and writing continues unabated in these stories--death as allegory or as a voluntary symbolic act, and writing as the one impregnable defense, writing as the only possible means of survival.

"Psalm 44" is the last major work of fiction by Danilo Kiš to be translated into English, and his only novel dealing explicitly with Auschwitz (where his own father died). Written when he was only twenty-five, before embarking on the masterpieces that would make him an integral figure in twentieth-century letters, Psalm 44 shows Kiš at his most lyrical and unguarded, demonstrating that even in "the place of dragons... covered with the shadow of death," there can still be poetry. Featuring characters based on actual inmates and warders--including the abominable Dr. Mengele--"Psalm 44" is a baring of many of the themes, patterns, and preoccupations Kiš would return to in future, albeit never with the same starkness or immediacy.