The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Prince of Fire: An Anthology of Comtemporary Serbian Short Stories by Radmila J. Gorup and Nadezda Obradovic
Biljana D. Obradovic

Radmila J. Gorup and Nadezda Obradovic, eds. The Prince of Fire: An
Anthology of Contemporary Serbian Short Stories. Foreword by Charles Simic. Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. 371 pp. Cloth: $50.00; paper: $19.95.

Thirty-five Serbian authors and as many stories can help U.S. readers to understand the other reality of Serbia’s people, showing their views through realistic, metaphysical, experimental, or creative nonfiction pieces. Not afraid of fire (the title of David’s story) surrounding them, they continue to create in spite of all the obstacles, writing about the past and how it affects the present (“Skull Tower,” by Had&Mac179;i-Tan&Mac197;i&Mac173;, is about the 1890 slaying of Serbs by Turks whose 952 skulls were built into a tower), about the changes due to war, forced emigration (Kapor, Dimi&Mac173;), about rejected writers (Tima) who cannot accept “pure, eternal Slavic suffering without which the very idea of self-respect [is] inconceivable” (Bulatovi&Mac173;). The Black Plague (Peki&Mac173;) can be applied to contemporary destruction of life in the Balkans where ordinary people don’t care about art but about survival, whereas artists cannot survive without their art, so they paint horror and agony in exile (Prodanovi&Mac173;).
Milorad Pavi&Mac173; creates a bridge between history and postmodernism dealing with the dichotomies of hatred and love/war and peace. Oluji&Mac173; writes about a woman trying to survive with jealousy and rejection; Dimovska about a woman left with a child and no means of support whose husband has died in the war. We learn more truths about the Balkans where, according to Ognjenovi&Mac173;, “the facts are known, but the real story is avoided.” The nonfiction experimental piece by Albahari recalls the author’s father’s time at a Nazi camp in Germany. The memoir, “The Lute and Scars,” by the late Danilo Ki asserts what binds this anthology: “The duty of man—is to exit this world leaving behind him not deeds” but something of goodness—“knowledge. Every written word is a genesis.” Wounds from love leave the deepest impressions in the soul. And don’t let literature replace love: “Life can’t be replaced by anything.” [Biljana D. Obradovic]