Poetry. Translated from the Serbian by various translators with an introduction by Charles Bernstein. CAT PAINTERS is the first comprehensive anthology of contemporary Serbian poetry to appear in English. Collecting the work of 71 Serbian poets born since 1940, this book includes Serbs living in Serbia; diasporic Serbs living in the US, France and Italy; Roma and Jewish Serbs; a Japanese who lives in Serbia; and LGBT writers. Half of those included are women. The poetry varies from very traditional forms to experimental, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E inspired, writing. They speak of all things human: love, war, peace, struggle and loss. Many of the poets were inspired by Americans like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Allen Ginsberg, Gwendolyn Brooks, past US Poet Laureate Charles Simic (who was born in Serbia and has edited an anthology of Serbian poetry in the US), and Charles Bernstein, who has written the Preface, among others. Editors Biljana D. Obradović, who lives in New Orleans, and Dubravka Djurić, who lives in Belgrade, both poets and critics, have assembled a broad range of work translated by 31 distinguished translators from around the world, revealing a side of Serbia which people in the US and the West may not be familiar with--its deep traditions and its very modern engagement with literature, politics and aesthetics. This remarkable anthology sets a high standard for future collections of Serbian, European, or indeed any literatures. Contributors: Vujica Resin Tucić, Judita Salgo, Katalin Ladik, Ljiljana Djurdjić, Stevan Tontić, Mirko Magarasević, Slobodan Tisma, Slobodan Zubanović, Dragan J. Ristić, Rasa Livada, Dusko Novaković, Radmila Lazić, Novica Tadić, Vladimir Kopicl, Vojislav Despotov, Bratislav R. Milanović, Stana Dinić Skočajić, Slavoljub Marković, Sasa Vazić, Ivana Milankov, Milovan Marčetić, Aleksandar Soknić, Verica Zivković, Milan Djordjević, Milos Komadina, Miodrag Raičević, Nikola Vujčić, Kayoko Yamasaki, Nina Zivančević, Snezana Minić, Danica Vukićević, Jelena Lengold, Zvonko Karanović, Zivorad Nedeljković, Dragan Jovanović Danilov, Vojislav Karanović, Dubravka Djurić, Biljana D. Obradović, Jasna Manjulov, Dejan Ilić, Milorad Ivić, Nenad Milosević, Milan Orlić, Marija Knezević, Jelena Marinkov, Sasa Jelenković, Dejana Nikolić, Vladislava Vojnović, Laslo Blasković, Oto Horvat, Srdjan Valjarević, Ana Ristović, Natasa Zizović, Nenad Jovanović, Ksenija Simić-Muller, Snezana Zabić, Milena Marković, Jelena Labris, Alen Besić, Dejan Čančarević, Danica Pavlović, Natalija Marković, Enes Halilović, Dragana Mladenović, Jasmina Topić, Sinisa Tucić, Marjan Čakarević, Maja Solar, Vladimir Stojnić, Ljiljana Jovanović, Jelena Savić. Translators: Stephen Agnew, Vesna Ajnspiler, David Albahari L�r�nt Bencze, Richard Berengarten, Ana Bozičević, Em�ke Z. B'Racz, Michael Castro, Milos Djurdjević, Evald Flisar, John Gery, Zdravka, Gugleta, G�bor G. Gyukics, Richard Harrison, Danijela Jovanović, Dusica Marinkov Jovanović, Alison Kapor, Vladimir Kapor, David Norris, Biljana D. Obradović, Zoran Paunović, Novica Petrović, Zorica Petrović, Charles Simic, Aleksandar Soknić, James Sutherland-Smith, Maja Teref, Steven Teref, Ljubomir Vukosavljević, Snezana Zabić, Nina Zivančević

Winner of the 1998 Misha Djordjevic Award for the best book on Serbian culture in English.Editors Gorup and Obradovic have collected stories from thirty-five outstanding writers in this first English anthology of Serbian fiction in thirty years. The anthology, representing a great variety of literary styles and themes, includes works by established writers with international reputations, as well as promising new writers spanning the generation born between 1930 and 1960. These stories may lead to a greater understanding of the current events in the former Yugoslavia.

Winner of the 1998 Misha Djordjevic Award for the best book on Serbian culture in English. Editors Gorup and Obradovic have collected stories from thirty-five outstanding writers in this first English anthology of Serbian fiction in thirty years. The anthology, representing a great variety of literary styles and themes, includes works by established writers with international reputations, as well as promising new writers spanning the generation born between 1930 and 1960. These stories may lead to a greater understanding of the current events in the former Yugoslavia.

This is the first in-depth, English-language history of modern Serbia in nearly half a century. It covers the period from the Serbian state’s revolutionary rebirth in the early nineteenth century, under the rebel leaders Karađorđe Petrović and Miloš Obrenović; its turbulent history of wars, uprisings and dynastic rivalries; the triumph of Yugoslav unification in 1918; and the catastrophe of occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941. It shows how the birth of the modern nation-state involved the creation of a new elite—dynasty, army and bureaucracy—whose rule over the peasantry generated a popular resistance that would ultimately take form in Nikola Pašić’s mighty People’s Radical Party. The resulting struggle between elitist Westernisers and pro-Russian populists became entwined with the struggle for pan-Serb and Yugoslav liberation and unification. These causes came together with the Sarajevo assassination of 1914, which triggered the First World War. Existing histories of the Yugoslav kingdom that emerged from that war focus on the national conflict between Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims and others, but Marko Attila Hoare challenges this narrative. He shows how the new kingdom’s politics continued to be dominated by the ongoing internal Serbian power struggle, bringing renewed disaster to Yugoslavia and its peoples.

The central role that the regime of Slobodan Milošević played in the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia is well known, but Marko Živković explores another side of this time period: the stories people in Serbia were telling themselves (and others) about themselves. Živković traces the recurring themes, scripts, and narratives that permeated public discourse in Milošević's Serbia, as Serbs described themselves as Gypsies or Jews, violent highlanders or peaceful lowlanders, and invoked their own mythologized defeat at the Battle of Kosovo. The author investigates national narratives, the use of tradition for political purposes, and local idioms, paying special attention to the often bizarre and outlandish tropes people employed to make sense of their social reality. He suggests that the enchantments of political life under Milošević may be fruitfully seen as a dreambook of Serbian national imaginary.