The Houses of Belgrade, first published in 1970, draws a parallel between the unrest culminating in the Belgrade student riots of 1968 and that at two earlier points in the history of Yugoslavia: the riots which preceded Germany's 1941 attack on Belgrade and the turmoil of Serbia's entry into WWI. Pekic relates his tale through Negovan, one of Belgrade's prime builders of houses, and through the metaphor of the gradual decline of the builder's mind presents a compelling look at the fear of loss and destruction in a chronically disrupted society.

The houses of Belgrade

Literature & Fiction

Pekić, Borislav

Literary

Harcourt, Brace. Jovanovich

Borislav Pekic spent six years in jail as a political prisoner, his only reading material the Bible. In 1965, ten years after his pardon, his first novel, The Time of Miracles, was published and 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, in most cases, to their eventual dissatisfaction. 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.

The Time of Miracles (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

Northwestern University Press

The Houses of Belgrade, first published in 1970, draws a parallel between the unrest culminating in the Belgrade student riots of 1968 and that at two earlier points in the history of Yugoslavia: the riots which preceded Germany's 1941 attack on Belgrade and the turmoil of Serbia's entry into WWI. Pekic relates his tale through Negovan, one of Belgrade's prime builders of houses, and through the metaphor of the gradual decline of the builder's mind presents a compelling look at the fear of loss and destruction in a chronically disrupted society.

The Houses of Belgrade (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

Contemporary

How to Quiet a Vampire: A Sotie (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

The disquieting novel How to Quiet a Vampire is a rumination on terror and intellect in the tradition of Joseph Heller and George Steiner. Published to acclaim in 1977, Pekic's novel of ideas follows Konrad Rutkowski, professor of medieval history and former Gestapo officer, as he returns to the scene of his war crimes determined to renounce, or perhaps justify, his Nazi past. In a series of letters, Rutkowski lays out his ambivalent reactions to war and violence, connecting his own swirling ideas to those of the major figures of European thought: Plato, St. Augustine, Descartes, Nietzsche, Freud, and others. Delving far deeper than mere intellect, however, Borislav Pekic was himself a frequent political agitator and occasional prisoner, and he drew on his first hand knowledge of police methods and life under totalitarianism to paint a chilling portrait of a supposedly free-thinking intellectual acting in the service of repression. At the same time he questions whether Rutkowski's ideology puts him outside the philosophical tradition he so admires—or if the line separating European thought from totalitarianism is not as clear as we like to think.

The disquieting novel How to Quiet a Vampire is a rumination on terror and intellect in the tradition of Joseph Heller and George Steiner. Published to acclaim in 1977, Pekic's novel of ideas follows Konrad Rutkowski, professor of medieval history and former Gestapo officer, as he returns to the scene of his war crimes determined to renounce, or perhaps justify, his Nazi past. In a series of letters, Rutkowski lays out his ambivalent reactions to war and violence, connecting his own swirling ideas to those of the major figures of European thought: Plato, St. Augustine, Descartes, Nietzsche, Freud, and others. Delving far deeper than mere intellect, however, Borislav Pekic was himself a frequent political agitator and occasional prisoner, and he drew on his first hand knowledge of police methods and life under totalitarianism to paint a chilling portrait of a supposedly free-thinking intellectual acting in the service of repression. At the same time he questions whether Rutkowski's ideology puts him outside the philosophical tradition he so admires—or if the line separating European thought from totalitarianism is not as clear as we like to think.

Originally published in 1975, The Apology and the Last Days is the final volume in a trilogy of novels—also including The Rise and Fall of Icarus Gubelkian and How to Quiet a Vampire—about the aftermath of World War II, by Borislav Pekić, one of the former Yugoslavia’s most important postwar writers. The narrator tells his story from prison, where he is serving time for the murder of a former Nazi official. As the novel unfolds, we learn that the victim was the same person whom the narrator, while a lifeguard during the war, saved from drowning, thus making him vulnerable to charges of collaboration. In this tragicomic tale, Pekic´ explores eternal questions of fate and individual responsibility.

The Apology and the Last Days: A Novel (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

Building can be seen as a master metaphor for modernity, which some great irresistible force, be it Fascism or Communism or capitalism, is always busy rebuilding, and Houses is a book about a man, Arsénie Negovan, who has devoted his life and his dreams to building. Bon vivant, Francophile, visionary, Negovan spent the first half of his life building houses he loved and even named—Juliana, Christina, Agatha—while making his hometown of Belgrade into a modern city to be proud of. The second half of his life, after World War II and the Nazi occupation, he has spent in one of those houses, looked after by his wife and a nurse, in hiding. Houses is set on the final day of his life, when Negovan at last ventures forth to see the world as it is. Negovan is one of the great characters in modern fiction, a man of substance and a deluded fantasist, a beguiling visionary and a monster of selfishness, a charmer no matter what. And perhaps he is right to fear that home is only an illusion in our world, or that only in illusion is there home.

Houses (New York Review Books Classics)

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

NYRB Classics

Vreme cuda

Laguna

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Books by Pekić, Borislav

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pekić, Borislav. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The houses of Belgrade

The Time of Miracles (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

The Houses of Belgrade (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

How to Quiet a Vampire: A Sotie (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

How to Quiet a Vampire: A Sotie (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

The Apology and the Last Days: A Novel (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

Houses (New York Review Books Classics)

Vreme cuda