Borislav Pekić was a prominent Serbian-Montenegrin writer and political activist. A lifelong anti-communist, he was a founding member of the Democratic Party in the post-Tito era. His work is considered among the greatest of 20th-century literature, distinguished by its profound engagement with political and social themes.
First published in 1977, this 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.
This 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 Pekic, 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.
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.
De sa main droite, Popier enregistrait les condamnations, de la gauche, il arrachait de petits morceaux de celle qu'il avait volée, les portait à sa bouche en faisant attention à ce qu'on ne le voie pas et les avalait après les avoir humectés sous sa langue. Puis sa main se glissait à nouveau sous son vêtement, à la recherche d'une autre bouchée. C'est ainsi que Jean-Louis Popier, greffier du tribunal institué par la grande Révolution française, mangea sa deuxième mort. C'était la première qu'il mangeait intentionnellement. Le papier était moins fade que celui de la nuit passée, l'encre ne lui donnait plus la nausée. Les deux matières avaient désormais le goût sucré de sa volonté. L'individu évoqué ici sous le nom de " l'homme qui mangeait la mort " fait partie de la multitude des petites gens dont les manuels parlent peu. Si les historiens de métier voient là une raison de s'en détourner pour se consacrer à ses contemporains plus illustres tels que Danton, Robespierre et Marat, cela ne saura qu'inciter davantage les écrivains, ces profanateurs de tombeaux, à tenter de la sauver de l'oubli.
Na londýnskom letisku Heathrow vypukla epidémia nebezpečnej choroby. Pred zmutovaným vírusom ľudstvo nepozná ochranu....
Zpověď Andrija Gavriloviće (emigranta v západním Německu), kde je obviněn z vraždy. Andrija se přiznal a ted píše doznání pro soud. Popisuje v něm svůj prostý život v Německu a špatné rozhodnutí, která v něm udělal (když třeba zachránil život topícímu se členu SS a pak za to pikal, všichni ho měli za kolaboranta). Opustila ho rodina, okolí se k němu stavělo negativně, dostal výpověď v práci. Přiznání k vraždě, i když se jednalo o nehodu, byla jediná možnost jak se očistit od zrady a zbavit se nálepky kolaborant. Autor zde často používá citáty z Platona, které v některých místech plynule přecházejí v Andrijovu zpověď.
