As far as the question of genre is concerned, please read further below The Third Culture.
The Houses of Belgrade
The Rise and Fall of Icarus Gubelkian
The Defense and the Last Days of Andrea Gavrilovic
How to Quiet a Vampire
The Golden Fleece
Rabies
Selected Works
1999
The Years the Locusts Have Devoured
The Argonauts, Phantasmagoria
Letters From Abroad
Atlantis
New Jerusalem
New Letters From Abroad
Last Letters From Abroad
A Sentimental History Of The British Empire
The Time of Words
A Pause from History
The Architects
Conceiving Atlantis
Diaries
Contemplation on the Golden Fleece
Pekic's Bench, Borislav Pekic's Legation at the Third Belgrade Gymnasium
Selected Letters From Abroad
Borislav Pekic's Political Notebooks
Borislav Pekic's Philosophical Notebooks
Correspondence as a life Part 1
Correspondence as a life Part 2
The Third Culture
Pekić is difficult to fit into a typical literary genre--and let us resist the über-genre, 'Classics', under which his work is admired and revered in his native Serbia--because he was first a political activist and second a writer. Although his writing is not scientific, the nature of thoughts explored both in his fiction and non-fiction place him alongside those scientists and thinkers John Brockman named the Third Culture:
The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.The success of Pekić's fictional work in particular, is due in large part to his ability to interlace page-turning plots, driven by fascinating and complex characters, with academic acumen in the fields of philosophy and anthropology, as well as history. And this allows Pekić to pull off a very rare feat: to entertain us with a gripping story and simultaneously invite us to join him on his intellectual journey, examining the central philosophical ideas ranging from their pre-Socratic beginnings all the way to the still unsolved problems in philosophy today - "What is the meaning of life?", "Where did we come from?", "What is reality?" - through an anthropological lens.
To better understand and appreciate this interplay of History, Philosophy and Anthropology in Pekić's novels, we recommend his lecture, "The Historical Novel and the Historical Reality" held in 1984 at the UCL in London ("Istorijski roman i istorijska realnost"), in which he surprised his audience by naming 1984 as "one of the best historical novels ever written".
The second example, of course, will arouse your surprise. It is George Orwell's 1984, the year through which we think we are passing. I say think, for in its essential meaning, we have in fact already past through it long ago, and the futuristic, negatively utopian form of the work which has deceived readers and critics alike, is in fact the artistic mask for one of the most perfect metahistorical novels of all time. For the basic condition which characterizes the society of Orwell's pseudo-future, is that of Doublethink. And Double-think is the content of the whole of human's history, from that very moment when mankind, at the dawn of consciousness, through the invention of the first tool, the innocent, and useful primeval forbear of our present-day atom bomb, once and for all set out along the path of the lower, but easier materialist alternative of life, leaving behind only double-think excuses for the spiritual one. This our civilization would not be schizophrenic if we were not aware of the mistaken nature of our choice. To overcome that awareness, which would have made history nonsensical for us in advance, we had to forget that this spiritual alternative and the possibility for it ever existed, and then forget that we had forgotten about it. We managed to achieve this by the complicated system of Double-think in the different areas of human life of human awareness. In the work of organizing The Global Lie which would quickly take over both the destiny and the history of mankind, there came together rationalistic ideas of progress, the deterministic cults, the various philosophies of so-called needs, and in the historical field, social utopias and pseudo-humanist doctrines.Pekić is unique in his calm, with which he addresses the ultimate hot-button issue of Materialism and Religious Dogma in The Global Lie, and his novels are all the more convincing because of it. He concludes:
I see my work on the historical novel in a spiritualist way, and not an historiographical one. The bringing to life of history is a work of magic, not of science. Facts are make-up. Make-up makes a face more visible, but it does not create it. If a writer does not have the motto of resurrection, "Arise and walk!" – he will achieve animated, but not real life, a corpse which moves but does not live. It will look like the past, perhaps, but it will not be the past.
There are a lot of those who know how to dig up a corps from the grave of the past, but only a very few who know how to summon up its spirit. I should like to be amongst these latter. But for that one probably has to be a medium, not a creator. It is probably necessary to give oneself over hypnotically to signals from 'the other side', to prophesy backwards, to purify oneself of the layers of prejudice and experience – one and the same thing – which have separated us from the past, in short, to become once more – innocent.
Only time will show whether I shall succeed.
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The Time of Miracles - Novel -
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| "Borislav Pekic has vision as well as courage to spare. . . . [This] is a book of provocative brilliance, sometimes outrageous, often outrageously funny, its humor black with resignation born of wisdom." -- New York Times |
Summary:
When Borislav Pekić's first novel, "The Time of Miracles", was published in 1965, it became an overnight sensation. A set of parables based on the miracles of the New Testament, the book rewrites the story of Jesus from the perspective of Judas (who is obsessed with the idea prophecy must be fulfilled) and from that of the individuals upon whom miracles were performed--without their consent and subsequently very much to their horrific detriment. Filled with humor and poignancy, The Time of Miracles is a trenchant commentary on the power of ideology in one's life, upon what it means to hold beliefs, and upon the nature of faith.Editions:
Prosveta, Belgrade, 1965, 1983. Narodna knjiga, Belgrade, 1997. Grafički zavod, Podgorica, Montenegro, 1969. Solaris, Novi Sad, 2006. Partizanska knjiga, Belgrade, 1984, in "Borislav Pekić's chosen works" in 12 volumes. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes.Anthologies:
New Writings in Yugoslavia, ed., Bernard Johnson, Penguin, London, UK.Anthology of Serbian SF, ed. B. Vukadinovic;
Anthology of Montenegro’s Prose, ed. M. Stojovic;
Translations:
English – Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1976, "Time of Miracles", trans. by Lovett F. Edwards; Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 2004French - "Le serpent a plumes", Paris, 1996, trans. by Mireille Robin.
Polish – Wydawnictwo literackie, Krakow, 1986, trans. Magdalene Petryriska;
Greek - Kedros, Athens, 2007
Rumanian;
Ukranian;
Hungarian;
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The Houses of Belgrade - Novel -
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Summary:
Arsenije Njegovan’s portrait through his obsessive love towards houses which are in his possession. He is able to fall in love with buildings as if they were humans. Symbolically the houses here are a metaphor for mens' yearning for property and beauty. From 1941 to 1968 Arsenije is isolated from the world in his home. The first time he ventures out is in 1968 just at the time of the student’s anti-government demonstrations. There he lands into a fight with the radicals, gets beaten up, and returns home where he writes his testament and dies. With cutting irony Pekić provides a brilliant insight into a mind possessed by a single passion: the love for buildings – the houses of Belgrade. Pekić says: “To enliven history is a work of magic, not of science. The task of literature is not merely to portray an epoch, but to imaginatively resurrect, revive its spirit in a way in which the contemporaries, the protagonists of our historic novel, have experienced it (not we in their place)”.Editions:
Portrait. - Prosveta, Belgrade, 1970, 1971 and 1991. NIN Award for the best novel of the year in 1970. Nolit, Belgrade, 1981. Partizanska knjiga, Belgrade, 1984, in "Borislav Pekić's chosen works" in 12 volumes. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes. Zavod za udžbenike, Belgrade, 2002. NIN and Zavod za udžbenike, Belgrade, 2004. Evro-Gunti, Belgrade, 2010. Translations: English - Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1978, "The Houses of Belgrade" trans. Bernard Johnson; English - Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 1994; Polish – Panstwowy Institut Wudawniczy, Warszawa, 1985, trans. Orzegorz Latuszynski; Czech – Odeon, Praha, 1985, trans. Josef Hlavnicka; Rumanian – Editura Univers, Bucuresti, 1985, trans. Voislav Stoianovici.The Rise and Fall of Icarus Gubelkian - Novel -
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Summary:
This fictional story is part of a trilogy treating different ways of collaboration. The novel tells us about an ice skating artist in the time of the German occupation of Serbia. Icarus wishes to accomplish his lifelong ambition, the need to be godlike, aspiring towards perfection, to compete with the Greek god Hellion. He is a genius on ice, proud of his art where he reaches the zenith by his glorious, almost unnatural jumps, contesting with the sun. He falls on the ice of human reality and breaks his spine. Pekić had thus transposed the legend of Icarus, as a tragic account of human vanity, that repeats itself at all time, and he permeates the Greek myth with a modern content.Editions:
Slovo ljubve, Belgrade, 1975. Partizanska knjiga, Belgrade, 1984, in "Borislav Pekić's chosen works" in 12 volumes. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes. Translations: Polish - Czyletnik, Warszawa, 1980, trans. Elzbieta Kwasiwska; Hungarian – Europa, Budapest, 1982, trans. Poor Zsigmond; Czech – Odeon, Praha, 1985, trans. Josef Hlavnicka; French – L’ Age d’ Homme, Lausanne, 1992, trans. Mireille Robin. Laguna, Belgrade, 2013.The Defense and the Last Days of Andreja Gavrilovic - Novel -
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Summary:
The central character is Andrija who is a lifeguard in a Serbian village on the river, during the German occupation. He spends his time waiting for someone to drown. Andria is afraid of losing his job, since no one seems to need his assistance. Suddenly he manages to rescue a German high-ranking officer. The Germans award him a medal, but the Serbs hate him for ‘collaborating’ with the Nazis. Immediately after the war he works in Germany, where his boss gets killed and he is blamed for it. This novel is part of a trilogy about different ways of collaboration. The main character is a victim of different ideological prejudices. His Calvary is tragic, and his plea in the interrogation is based on Socrates’ defense. It is a funny and witty story despite the fatal endingEditions:
Slovo ljubve, Belgrade, 1977. Partizanska knjiga, Belgrade, 1984, in "Borislav Pekić's chosen works" in 12 volumes. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes. Translations: English - Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 2011, trans. Bojan Mišić; Polish; Hungarian - Europa, Budapest, 1982, trans. Poor Zsigmond; Czech – Odeon, Praha, 1983, trans. Jirri Fiedler; French – L’ Age d’ Homme, Lausanne, 1990, trans. Harieta et Francis Wybrands. Laguna, Belgrade, 2013.How to Quiet a Vampire - Sottie -
Summary:
Third part of Pekić’s trilogy about collaboration. Here the protagonist tries to find a modus vivendi with his Nazi past, either to redeem it or to lay it to rest. A narrative written in epistle form, in which the leading character has a polemic dialogue with an invisible correspondent, a deadly trial with history - the principal culprit for his moral and spiritual disintegration. It explains the genesis of a totalitarian mentality, and at the same time shows the destruction of Nazism and similar forms of myths and ideologies. The writer demonstrates how there are no small compromises, and that in the end the small ones are, because everything evolves from them, really the most dangerous. The letters are written by a former SS officer, who later becomes a professor of medieval history, and the correspondence demonstrates his participation in the occupation of the Balkans.Editions:
United Belgrade Publishers (Bigz, Rad, Narodna knjiga) Belgrade, 1977. First prize from the United Belgrade Publishers. (First version in Stvaranje, 1972, under the title “The Death and Transformation”.) Partizanska knjiga, Belgrade, 1984, in "Borislav Pekić's chosen works" in 12 volumes. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes. Translations: Czech – Dilia, Praha, 1980, trans. Irena Wenigova; Slovene – Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana, 1981, trans. Ferdinand Miklavc; Polish – Wydawnictwo Lodzkie, Lodz, 1985, trans. Magdalene Petryriska; Italian – De Martinis & Co, Milano, 1992, trans. Alice Parmeggiani. English translation by Bogdan Rakic & Stephen M. Dickey, How to Quieten a Vampire, published by Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, in autumn 2002. Laguna, Belgrade, 2012.The Golden Fleece - Novel -
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Summary:
This phantasmagoric novel and Pekić's masterpiece describes a Tzintzar family from Moskopolje, and by way of this clan, a subjective and historical vision of Belgrade and the Serbian bourgeois class. The time in the story unfolds not in a linear but in a circular fashion, from the imaginary start at Moskopolje in the year 1769, proceeding parallel into the “past” and “future”. It progresses backwards in the past to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and into the future to Buenos Aires in 1980, positioning the years 1453 and 1980 at the same space level, and then swallows it all like a “black cosmic hole” - into the timelessness of the Eleusinian mysteries. At that same moment the carrier of the family’s consciousness, Simeon Njegovan, the Boss, is dying, achieving eternity in the only possible way for a human being. The past, the present and the future are simultaneous zones of temporality, and the journey through time is treated just as an illusion. “The whole saga of The Golden Fleece depends upon the principle of understanding time”, says Pekić. The constant credo of this family’s odyssey is the desire for possession, giving it the highest meaning - the will for ownership. The novel is a syncretic polyphony about the eternal search for the Golden Fleece of Life. In the final phases it explores the prehistoric mythical roots of our civilization, of the Pelage and the Palaeobalkanic era, were there where no boundaries between the possible and the impossible. It is an analysis and a critique of our materialistic civilization, our rationalistic views on life, founded on possession and possessiveness, as well as the morality, which evolves from it. The narrative is linked to its appropriate time, and through differences and analogies, the author tries to decipher mythology as the quintessence of human history. It shows an imaginative resurrection of the past, the revival of its spirit in the way in which its contemporaries, the characters of this historic saga, have experienced it. This is not only a history of the family Njegovan, of Belgrade, the Serbs and the Balkans, but also an artistic way of showing the anthropological history of the Birth of European civilization. From the imaginary beginnings men renounced the higher possibilities of humanity, contained in the spiritual alternative, of which the Argonauts’ voyage to the East to get the Golden Fleece of Life, is only a mythical metaphor. “The whole book is in essence a transcript of the Orphean myth. In The Golden Fleece I maintain the belief that the myth is a form of existence and vision, and not exclusively of perception”, says Pekić about the novel.
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Editions:
volumes 1-7. Phantasmagoria. - Prosveta, Belgrade, 1978-1986. 1-5 volumes were published by Partizanska knjiga, Belgrade, 1984, in "Borislav Pekić's chosen works" in 12 volumes. Njegoš Award 1987. Dereta's leather-bound collector's edition of the seven volumes came out during 2005 and 2006. Selected as the best Serbian novel between in 1982 and 1992. Translation into French: Agone, Editions Marginales, Paris, trans. Mireille Robin.1st volume, published in January 2002, 2nd volume, in 2003, and 3rd volume in 2004. Laguna, Belgrade, 2013.Rabies - Dystopian Novel -
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Summary:
Rabies is a vision of the world’s end, which somewhat justly corresponds to that which we, in our anthropocentric vanity, have made of it, since nature has leased the planet to us only temporarily. The novel displays a microbiological catastrophe that occurs because of a recombination of the rabies virus in a scientific laboratory. Tearing off the petit bourgeois masque of pity from his characters, Pekić demonstrates how people are ruthless in their rage, especially when they find themselves in trouble, and have to save their own lives. This apocalyptic thriller deals with mankind as well as with the nature of our civilization. It is a science fiction drama with a number of parallel stories, and it all happens at London Heathrow Airport with a catastrophic end. It has different levels in which it could be read, with a philosophical and even a religious message.Editions:
Sveucilisna naklada Liber, Zagreb, 1983. Award “Belgrade conquerors”. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes. Laguna, Belgrade, 2011. Translations: Spanish – "La rabia", Grupo Libro, Madrid, 1988, trans. Luisa Fernanda Garrido; Slovene – Drzavna zalozba Slovenije, Ljubljana, 1992, trans. Ferdinand Miklavc; Hungarian trans. Endre Bojtar. Laguna, Belgrade, 2011. |
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Borislav Pekić Chosen Works
Book 1 – The Rise and Downfall of Icarus Gubelkian;
The Defense and the Last Days of Andreja Gavrilović.
Forewords by: Nikola Milosevic “Borislav Pekić and His “Mithomahy” and Borislav Pekić “The Myth of Literature and the Myth of Reality”.
Book 2 - The Time of Miracles.
Book 3 - The Pilgrimage of Arsenije Njegovan.
Book 4 - How to Quieten a Vampire.
Book 5 - The Golden Fleece, part 1.
Book 6 – The Golden Fleece, part 2.
Book 7 – The Golden Fleece, part 3.
Book 8 – The Golden Fleece, part 4.
Book 9 – The Golden Fleece, part 5.
Book 10 – On a Mad, White Stone, “The Theater as a Room for Smashing Glass” (essay);
selected comedies: “On a Mad, White Stone or the Awakening of a Vampire”;
“Destruction of a Speech”;
“Art and Reality”;
“Who Killed My Immortal Soul?”
“How a Gentleman was forged”;
“Bermuda Triangle”;
“The One Hundred and Eighty-sixth Step”;
“The Generals or Kinship in Arms”.
Book 11 – In Eden, in the East, selected farces: “In Eden, in the East”;
“How to Entertain Mr. Martin”;
“Categorical Demand”;
“The Gray Colour of Reason”;
“A Bad Day at the Stock Exchange”;
“The Hanged Man”;
“Theseus, Have You Killed the Minotaur?”
“Rhine’s All Souls’ Day”.
Book 12 – "There Where the Vines Weep" – essays, diaries.
First part: Art and Reality, (essays). -
1. “Responsibility – a State or a Process”. -
2. “Self Censorship – the Cancer of Literature”. -
3. “Bruckner, Wagner, and Private Property in Arts”. -
4. “Governmental Opinion’s Safari”. -
5. “Metacritic”. -
6. “Mistakes that pave the Way”. -
7. “Heretic Ideas about Literature”. -
8. “Literature between Fact and Mystery”-
9. “Literature, Reality and Consequences”. -
10. “The Historical Novel and Historical Reality”. -
11. “The Builders”. -
12. “The Censor”. -
13. “The Living Chair of Henry Moore”. -
14. “The Theater as a Confessional”. -
15. “The Delightful Literature and an Ugly Strangulation”. -
16. “Teenage Years in the Balkans, the Peninsula of Miracles”. -
17. “At Last One Good German!”-
18. “The Ghostly Trains of Civic Insubordination”. -
19. “’Black Marketers’ or how I have understood that the Middle Class Has Been Attacked by Mildew”.
Second part: The Bourgeois, a Reformer or an Outsider – (essays).
20. “About a Perfectly Evil State”. -
21. “Transformation of a Mask into a Face or The Risk of Simulation”. -
22. “The Discreet Magic of Compromise”. -
23. “Morbus Pauli or On Conversion”. -
24. “Gaseous Form of the Past”. -
25. “Confession as a Method”. -
26. “With Anger and Respect”. -
27. “The Sense of Profit as a Consequence of Natural Selection”. -
28. “In the Search for the Bones of Resurrection or About the Sacred Alliance of Science and Crime”.
29. “Let’s Not Hang About: Bring Back the Axe-man”.-
30. “Invitation to a Dialogue”.
Third part: Shadows of Old and New Belgrade (essays).-
31. “Jason’s Fires”.-
32. “The Balkans’ Time”.-
33. “The Dogs and Serbs”.-
34. “The Revolution That Is Postponed for an Uncertain Time”.-
35. “The Serbian Press Between Foreign and Domestic Affairs”.-
36. “The State’s Secret and the Sharpening of Swords in the Streets”.-
37. “Finally One Shadow of New Belgrade”.
Fourth part: At the Place Where the Vines Wept - (diaries).-
“’Thoughts in the Elevator’ or The Diaries as a Picture of Life as it Could Have Been”.-
“The Years that the Locusts Have Devoured, 1948-1954”.-
“The Islanders or The Years of Adjustment, 1954-1959”.-
“The Taste of Honey or The Time of Opening, 1959-1966”.-
“The Narrow Doorway, 1966-1971”.-
“The Flight to Tibet, 1971-1981”.-
“On the Trail of Atlantis, 1982-1992”.-
Afterword: “Borislav Pekic, an excerpt for a portrait” by Borislav Mihajlovic Mihiz.
Borislav Pekić Selected Works
Book 1 –
The Rise and Downfall of Icarus Gubelkian;
The Defense and the Last Days of Andreja Gavrilović.
Afterword: Petar Pijanović, "Prose of Borislav Pekić"
Book 2 - The Time of Miracles.
Book 3 - The Pilgrimage of Arsenije Njegovan.
Book 4 - How to Quieten a Vampire.
Book 5 - Rabies
Book 6 - New Jerusalem
1999 - Novel -
Summary:
Anthropological tales depicting our world at different stages of development. Five stories about five civilizations, five human alternatives, which are separated by millions of years. In the first story (“The Golden Countryside”) the catastrophe is happening in 1999, in spite of the late demonstration of a spiritual alternative. The second story (“New Jerusalem”) tells us about the consequences of 1999. Through the history of the Second mutant civilization, which consists of isolated and self-sufficient, mentally completely different individuals, served by robots, whose brilliant representative, an archaeologist, finds a comforting alternative to this individualistic world; in the ice of the North, on the grounds of an old Siberian concentration camp, which he, by faultless logical and scientific means, explains as an ideal concept of society. In the third story (“The Last Man on Earth”) the last human dies, the consequence of 1999, the last mutant on earth, who on his own represents the Third civilization; he has all the required alternative, spiritual, even occult powers – he can through pure energy “move mountains” – but without being able to use them for anything useful, since except for him there is not a living soul in the world. Robots, animated biological copies of men, and the inhabitants of the Fourth civilization inherit the earth, but in view of their lifeless nature, they are completely adapted to the materialistic civilization, against which the lifegiving environment has fought in vain. In the fourth story (“The Divine News”) about the Fourth civilization, the year 1999 approaches once more, as if for mysterious reasons the first story is repeated again; but this is an illusion, as is everything in that story, since the time is different. Only the humane history repeats itself. In the fifth story (“The Sixth Day”) the year is 1999, and again it’s the 6th July, and again 17:30 in the afternoon, but the time is different. In this Fifth civilization, in a world of absolute necessities, suddenly, paradoxically, the famous year 1999 and Nostradamus’ prediction doesn’t come true. In the end, in the sixth story (“Interlude”) some sort of post-script, there is a possibility that in some future time, in some year 1999, at last the First man will be born. All forms of human existence that our species had tested have always led to the same end – our self-destruction, as if it was written in the basic human code.Editions:
Anthropological narrative. - Cankarjeva Založba, Ljubljana, 1985. Laguna, Belgrade, 2011. Award for the best science fiction novel.The Years the Locusts Have Devoured -Diaries -
Summary:
These are Pekic’s memoirs in three volumes, with an account of the post revolutionary days, and the life of the bourgeoisie under communist rule, their persecutions, particularly in Belgrade. The author has been arrested as an eighteen-year-old student, being the political secretary of an illegal organization, The Union of Democratic Youth of Yugoslavia. He was sentenced first to ten and after the appeal to 15 years imprisonment with hard labor. The first volume deals with the interrogation in 1948, the second is about the trial, the third describes his time in jail till the end of 1953. The account is not purely autobiographical in the classical sense, since the author talks also about the way people lived after the Second World War in Yugoslavia. He depicts prison life as an unique civilization, and the civilization of freedom, at that time in Yugoslavia, as a special prison. The theme is the time and the way people were thinking and behaving, its spirit, the events which illustrate the era, as well as the destructive consequences which communism has had on the urbane classes in Belgrade. In Pekic’s words: “In The Locusts … I am not the subject, neither are the people who shared my views. The topic is the era”. The three volumes enfold the destiny of other inmates and prison life in general, not only in Yugoslavia, but also in the world. The circumstances are described with a detached view, often with humor, which makes the topic interesting and exciting to read.Editions:
Anthropological narrative. - Cankarjeva Založba, Ljubljana, 1985. Volume 1, 2 &3. Reminiscence from Prison (1948-1954) or An Anthropological Epic. - Bigz, Belgrade, 1987-1990. Foreword by Borislav Pekic: “Returning to Prison or The Sandman’s Diary”. According to an opinion poll of two daily newspapers, the first volume was selected as the best Yugoslav publication in 1987. The second volume received the award “Miloš Crnjanski” as Best Memoirs in 1989. Službeni glasnik, Belgrade 2010. Laguna, Belgrade, 2013.Translations: Two extracts have been translated into English: “Interrogation or Self-interrogation /1948-1949/”, Passport, Huntingdon, 1993, trans. Christina Pribichevich-Zoric; “Resistance and Comforts”, Leopard III, London, 1994, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac.
The Argonauts, Phantasmagoria - Novel -
Summary:
This 7th volume of The Golden Fleece, is printed as a separate book, since it could be read independently from the previous six, although it represents the climax of the epic. It depicts the voyage of Simeon Nago, the founder of the clan, with the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece of Life. In a way it is the beginning as well as the end of the saga. In it emotionality and spirituality surrender to the myth, to its philosophy, to the more profound mysteries and implications of life. The theme is given in allegories and everything is a symbol. Here we have the key for all six preceding volumes and only with this key could we understand the higher level of meaning, which was the reason for writing The Golden Fleece in the first place. “This volume is a reflection, in fact my thoughts transformed into visions, or better - into pictures, with the hope that the reader will read it as thoughts. Noemis found the real Golden Fleece by committing himself to human history, and going through mankind’s inferno. In The Golden Fleece I have established the myth’s power over history and over human’s destiny”, says Pekic in his diaries.Editions:
SKZ, Belgrade, 1989.Letters From Abroad
Summary:
As a part-time commentator for the BBC World Service, the Serbo-Croat Section, London, (1986-1991) Pekic read his “Letters from London” every week and subsequently they were printed. The publication consists of 50 letters, which have witty and inventive observations about England and the English people, covering different subjects and events. The letters were broadcast for listeners in Yugoslavia, therefore Pekic made also numerous comparisons with the government, the country and the characteristics of the people in his fatherland in a humorous way. “If it is good, our life loses a lot if it isn’t lived at the right place, but the right place is only the one where we were born and grew up. Of all the foreignness to which we are condemned, the most bearable is still our own’, says Pekic.Editions:
Nakladni zavod Znanje, Zagreb, 1987. Foreword by Borislav Pekic: “A Letter to the Reader”. "Sabrana pisma iz tuđine", Službeni glasnik, Belgrade, 2010.Atlantis - Novel -
Summary:
At first sight a thriller, but in fact an anthropological fantasy – a global vision of mankind’s past and future. Our civilization is basically depicted as an android and not a human history. The false lifestyle which we lead is only an imitation of life, created by androids, and it is thus impossible to enjoy genuine life. A war starts for a humanitarian existence, a fight between the robot majority and the human minority, who are the survivors of the sunken Atlantis. The story delivers the idea of our pseudo life, a synthetic existence, a phantasmagoric reality in which we live. It shows the fate of humanity, which has developed in this way because of the all-embraced materialism, the mechanization of life, and foremost by reason of the automation of our life, in the real and figurative meaning. It shows the alienated models of behavior, a false and misleading history, which has been developed from the beginning. The robots lose this war, but at the same time mankind also lost, since the people from Atlantis had to use ignoble means to win the fight. According to Pekić: “The novel Atlantis should be perceived as a global metaphor of the history of our species”.Editions:
Epic. Vol. 1 & 2, Nakladni zavod Znanje, Zagreb, 1988. “Goran” award. Laguna, belgrade, 2011.New Jerusalem - Novel -
Summary:
Five stories create this Gothic chronology. The first: “Megalos Mastoras and His Work, 1347” takes place in Byzantium during the plague of the 'Black Death'. The second: “The Imprint of a Heart on the Wall, 1649” depicts an event from British history. The third: “The Man who Devours Death, 1793” is happening at the time of Terror during the French Revolution. The fourth: “The Fiddler from the Golden Time, 1987” is located in Belgrade. The fifth: “The Fire of New Jerusalem, 2999” is a projection into the future. Each story has as the fundamental idea one Element – Fire (the first), Earth (the second), Water (the third), Air (the fourth), Metal (the fifth). All the narratives try to reach an answer as to the quintessence of life and to find responses to some basic queries about humanity from a viewpoint of the time in which the story is located. What is common in all these tales is a deep resignation and helplessness of man in getting valid answers in response to basic questions. The chronicle indicates Pekic’s view on mankind’s history, past as well as the future, as an account of powerlessness, ignorance and misunderstandings.Editions:
Gothic narrative. - Nolit, Belgrade, 1988. Prosveta, Belgrade, 1991, in "Borislav Pekić's selected works" in 6 volumes. Translations: one story published in French: L’homme qui mangeait la mort, Editions du Titre, 1988, trans. Mireille Robin, which won The Best Book of a Foreign Author in September 2005 on 'France kulture'. Another story was translated into English in The Prince of Fire. An Anthology of Contemporary Serbian Short Stories.ed. Radmila J. Gorup amd Nadezda Obradovic with a foreword by Charles Simic. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. Translated by Bogdan Rakic and Stephen M. Dickey: "Megalos Mastoras and His Work, 1347 AD”, pp. 17-53. Translation into Greek of the book is in progress.
