Serbian Literature Series – serie

Svetislav Basara’s short fiction plays wild games with time and space while nonetheless keeping one foot grounded at all times in the real-life concerns of a young writer during the late communist and postcommunist eras in the former Yugoslavia. Dealing with civil war and other matters of life and death, Basara’s stories remain stubbornly eccentric, retaining every quirk, kink, and convolution made famous in his celebrated English-language debut novel, Chinese Letter.

Petar, a devoted family man, leaves his apartment to buy some coffee and goes missing. While his wife is desperately looking for him, he finds himself trapped in another woman’s dreams. As one dream encounter follows the other, Petar and the dreamer, Emilija, become aware of the spiritual and emotional emptiness that exists within them. Will they allow their connection to transcend the metaphysical domain to attain the real and corporeal? Fragile Travelers is a compelling story of an improbable intimacy between two people, introduced and closed by an omniscient narrator but told almost entirely in the alternating voices of Emilija and Petar. With its subtle lyricism and well-paced humor, Fragile Travelers takes the reader on a journey that explores the emotional emptiness of modern life, but gives its protagonists a chance to search for a meaningful existence—if nowhere else—at least in dreams.