Escher’s Loops Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić Once again Zivkovic demonstrates the sheer power of storytelling in this complex cycle of interlocking narratives. Like one of Escher’s drawings, the narrative threads lead one through a dizzying labyrinth of recurring themes, images and characters, all of whom are linked with elegant mathematical precision: God and […]

The Writer & The Ghostwriter Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić The Writer: A Very Short Novel, without Chapters, about Writing and Darkness Where does all the writing come from? Is it divine inspiration, a bolt of lightning that reveals a whole new work in a single glimpse, or a unique gift granted by demonic […]

The Image Interpreter Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Randall A. Major In a carriage of the Paris metro, nine people cross paths one ordinary Friday morning: a retired office worker who comes there purely to read; a tourist revisiting the memories of sixty years ago; a funeral mourner who has discovered the beauty of cemeteries; an […]

Miss Tamara, the Reader Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić In this suite of eight stories, the three ages of woman—youth, midlife and senescence—engage in a complex and fruitful dance. A young Miss Tamara is lured by a series of postcards concealed in library books. A middle-aged Miss Tamara discovers that her new reading glasses […]

Amarcord Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić Ten linked stories with resonant titles explore almost every conceivable aspect of human memory: the positive and the negative, the precious and the profane, the heavenly and the unbearably hellish. Zivkovic’s deceptively simple tales anatomize the essence of what makes human beings tick, our passions, our vanities and […]

The Bridge Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić What is the link between red hair, a red bowling ball and a red bikini? Between an overcoat with asymmetrical lapels, a scarf with two blotches and a pair of non-matching sneakers? In this brainteasing trio of stories, Zoran Živković explores the collision of realities: a man […]

Twelve Collections Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić What lies behind the human urge to collect things? What is the true psychology of the kleptomaniac? These questions bear on all of us; within every person there lurks a fanatical philatelist or a monomaniacal lepidopterist, just waiting to burst forth. In his new story cycle, Twelve […]

Four Stories Till the End Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić In what strange edifice of the imagination do you find a condemned cell, a hotel room and a hospital room? What kind of hotel offers a zinc mine, a meat-packing plant, a weapons factory and a cemetery of famous artists among its attractions? Why […]

Steps Through the Mist Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić Five women of various ages face, each in her own way, what seems to be the deterministic trap of Fate: a freshman in a girls’ boarding school with the strange ability to share other people’s dreams; a young woman in a straitjacket, desperately trying to […]

Impossible Encounters Zoran ŽIVKOVIĆ translated by Alice Copple-Tošić One of the most beloved “mosaic novels,” The Library presents a series of tales centered on our love of books—taken, at times, to extremes. A writer encounters a website where all his possible future books are on display; a lonely man faces an infinite flow of hardback […]