Borislav Pekic
Encyclopedia
Podgorica
Podgorica , is the capital and largest city of Montenegro.Podgorica's favourable position at the confluence of the Ribnica and Morača rivers and the meeting point of the fertile Zeta Plain and Bjelopavlići Valley has encouraged settlement...
, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, February 4, 1930, died in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, July 2, 1992) was a Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
writer. He was born in 1930, to a prominent family in Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, at that time part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. From 1945 until his immigration to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1971, he lived in Belgrade. He was also a renowned leader of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (Serbia)
The Democratic Party is a political party in Serbia. It is described as a social liberal or social democratic party.-Pre-war history:The Democratic Party was established on 16 February 1919 from unification of Sarajevo parties independent radicals, progressives, liberals and the Serbian part of...
.
He is considered one of the most important Serbian literary figures of the 20th century.
Early life and novels
Borislav Pekić spent his childhood in different cities of SerbiaSerbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
and Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. He graduated from high school in 1945 in Belgrade and shortly afterwards was arrested with the accusation of belonging to the secret association "Yugoslav Democratic Youth" and sentenced to fifteen years of prison. During the time in prison he conceived many of the ideas later developed in his major novels. He was released after five years and in 1953 began studying experimental psychology at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy
University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy
The University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Serbia, founded in the early 19th century within the Belgrade Higher School...
, although he never earned a degree.
In 1958 he married Ljiljana Glišić, the niece of Milan Stojadinović
Milan Stojadinovic
Milan Stojadinović was a Yugoslav political figure and a noted economist.Stojadinović was born in Čačak in central Serbia, and went to school in Užice and Kragujevac. In 1910 he graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School, and gained a Ph.D. in economics in 1911...
, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (1935–1939) and a year later their daughter Aleksandra was born. 1958 marked also the year when Pekić wrote his first of over twenty original film scripts for the major film studios in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, among which Dan četrnaesti ("The Fourteenth Day") represented Yugoslavia at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
For years Pekić had been working on several novels and when the first of them, Vreme čuda (1965), came out, it caught the attention of a wide reading audience as well as the critics. In 1976 it was published in English by Brace Harcourt in New York as The Time of Miracles. It was also translated into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in 1986, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
in 1986, Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
in 1987, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
in 2004, and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
in 2007. Pekić's first novel clearly announced two of the most important characteristics of his work: sharp anti-dogmatism and constant scepticism regarding any possible 'progress' mankind has achieved over the course of history.
During the 1968–1969 period, Pekić was one of the editors of Književne novine literary magazine. In 1970 his second novel, Hodočašće Arsenija Njegovana (The Pilgrimage of Arsenije Njegovan) was published, in which an echo of the students protests of 1968 in Yugoslavia can be found. Despite his ideological distance from the mainstream opposition movements, the new political climate further complicated his relationship with the authorities, who refused him a passport for some time. The novel, nevertheless, won the NIN award
NIN Prize
The NIN Prize is a Serbian literary award established in 1954 by NIN magazine and is an given annually for the best newly published novel in Serbian literature . The award is presented every year in January by a jury of writers...
for the best Yugoslav novel of the year. An English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation The Houses of Belgrade appeared in 1978 and it was later published in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
.
Exile and further work
Following Pekić's immigration to London in 1971, the Yugoslav authorities still considered him persona non grata and for several years they prevented his books from being published in Yugoslavia. Finally, in 1975, Uspenje i sunovrat Ikara Gubelkijana ("The Rise and Fall of Icarus Gubelkian") appeared. It was later translated into PolishPolish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
in 1980, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
in 1982, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
in 1985 and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in 1992.
In 1977 he sent the manuscript of Kako upokojiti Vampira ("How to Quiet a Vampire") to an anonymous literary competition. The Association of Yugoslav Publishers recognized it as the best novel of the year and promptly published it. Kako upokojiti Vampira was subsequently translated into Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
in 1980, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
in 1985, and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
in 1992, with an English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation finally appearing in 2005. Based in part on Pekić’s own prison experiences, this novel offers an insight into the methods, logic and psychology of a modern totalitarian regime.
Odbrana i poslednji dani ("The Defence and the Last Days", 1977) was published in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
and Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
in 1982, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
in 1983, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in 1989 and Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
in 2003. These three novels essentially dealt with contrasting types of collaboration in Yugoslavia at different levels during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In 1978, after more than two decades of preparation, investigation and study, the first volume of Zlatno runo ("The Golden Fleece", 1978-1986) was published, fully establishing Pekić as one of the most important Serbian authors. In 1987 he received Montenegrin Njegoš award for this work, marking it as one of the most important contemporary prose writings in Yugoslavia. The Golden Fleece prompted comparison by international critics to James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
’s Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
and its narrative patterns of classical myths, to Thomas Mann's
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
Buddenbrooks
Buddenbrooks
Buddenbrooks was Thomas Mann's first novel, published in 1901 when he was twenty-six years old. The publication of the 2nd edition in 1903 confirmed that Buddenbrooks was a major literary success in Germany....
and its long family history and evolution of pre-war society, and to Aldous Huxley's
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
Point Counter Point
Point Counter Point
Point Counter Point is a novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1928. It is Huxley's longest novel, and was notably more complex and serious than his earlier fiction....
and its inner tensions created through a maze of conflicting perspectives; yet The Golden Fleece was also hailed as unique. One of the novel’s obvious distinctions is its enormous scope and thematic complexity. The Golden Fleece describes the wanderings of generations of the Njegovans, and through them explores the history of the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. The first, second and third volumes were published in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The fourth volume was published in 2008.
During the 1980s Pekić created something entirely new. He had been collecting material for a book about the lost island of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
, with the intention to give “a new, although poetical, explanation of the roots, development, and the end of our civilization”. Despite the classical sources that inspired his anthropological interests, Pekić decided to project his new vision into the future and thus avoid the restrictions of the ‘historical models’, which he had inevitably had to confront in his earlier remakes of ancient myths. The result was three novels: Besnilo ("Rabies", 1983), Atlantida ("Atlantis", 1988) and 1999 (1984). The novel Rabies together with The Golden Fleece and The Years the Locusts Have Devoured, were selected by readers as the best novels in the years from 1982 to 1991. All of them were reprinted numerous times in Serbia. Rabies was published in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
in 1988, and Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
in 1994, and Atlantis in Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
in 1989. For Atlantis Pekić won the ‘Croatian Goran’ award in 1988. At the end of 1984 Pekić's twelve volume Selected Works appeared, winning him an award from the Union of Serbian Writers.
Godine koje su pojeli skakavci ("The Years the Locusts Have Devoured", in three volumes) was published between 1987 and 1990. Two parts of the 1st volume were translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and published in literary magazines. These are Pekić’s memoirs with an account of the post-war days and the life and persecutions of the bourgeoisie under the communist rule. The account is not purely autobiographical in the classical sense, since Pekić also deals with life in general in Yugoslavia after the Second World War. He depicts prison life as a unique civilization and the civilization of ‘freedom’ as a special kind of prison. This trilogy was selected as the best memoir and received the ‘Miloš Crnjanski
Miloš Crnjanski
Miloš Crnjanski was a poet of the expressionist wing of Serbian modernism, author, and a diplomat...
’ award.
The gothic stories Novi Jerusalim ("The New Jerusalem") were published in 1989, and Pekić accepted the Majska Rukovanja award in Montenegro in 1990 for his literary and cultural achievements. Two stories from the book were published in French, English and Ukrainian in different anthologies. 'Covek koji je jeo smrt' ("The man who ate death") from Novi Jerusalim ("The New Jerusalem") was translated into French in 2005, and won the French "Book Of The Day" award the same year.
Film, theater and radio
Pekić distinguished himself in the 1970s as one of the best SerbianSerbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
contemporary dramatists. He regularly wrote radio-plays for Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Westdeutscher Rundfunk is a German public-broadcasting institution based in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia with its main office in Cologne. WDR is a constituent member of the consortium of German public-broadcasting institutions, ARD...
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, as well as Süddeutscher Rundfunk
Süddeutscher Rundfunk
The Süddeutscher Rundfunk was a German radio and television station operating in the northern part of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It existed from 1949 to 1998, when it was merged with the then Südwestfunk to form the Südwestrundfunk....
, Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. Of the 27 plays written and performed in Serbia, 17 had their first production in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Many of them were transformed into theatre and/or TV plays, and received a number of awards. Sixteen were published in his Odabrana dela (Selected works, 1984) and his play Generali ili srodstvo po oruzju (The Generals or Kinship-In-Arms, 1969) can be found in any anthology of Serbian contemporary drama. Pekić's theatre plays were widely acclaimed and popular, the most famous being Korešpondencija (Correspondence 1979), which was based on the fourth volume of the Golden Fleece and ran for 280 performances and 23 years at the Atelje 212 Theatre in Belgrade.
Throughout his career, Pekić worked on numerous films, writing more than twenty original screenplays and adapting some of his novels to the screen. The Time of Miracles was selected to represent Yugoslavia at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 1991, where it won an award, and later at film festivals in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
. The Devils Heaven (The Summer of White Roses) won an award at the film festival in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
in 1989 and was selected the same year to represent Yugoslavia at film festivals in Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
(France), Pula
Pula
Pula is the largest city in Istria County, Croatia, situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, with a population of 62,080 .Like the rest of the region, it is known for its mild climate, smooth sea, and unspoiled nature. The city has a long tradition of winemaking, fishing,...
(Croatia), San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
(Spain), and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and San Francisco (USA).
As a part-time commentator at the BBC World
BBC World
BBC World News is the BBC's international news and current affairs television channel. It has the largest audience of any BBC channel in the world...
Service in London, (1986–1991) Pekić read his ‘Letters from London’ every week; these were subsequently printed in Yugoslavia as Pisma iz tuđine, Nova pisma iz tuđine, and Poslednja pisma iz tuđine (Letters From Abroad, 1, 2 &3, 1987-1991). Each book was made up of 50 letters with witty and inventive observations about England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and the English people. The letters were also broadcast for listeners in Serbia, for whom Pekić particularly enjoyed making numerous humorous comparisons between the English and his fatherland’s governments, country and people. For these books he received the Jaša Ignjatović award (Hungary) in 1991. Pekić also ran a series on the same program at the BBC about the history of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, which was published posthumously - Sentimentalna povest Britanskog carstva (A Sentimental History Of The British Empire, 1992), for which he received the Yearly ‘Bigz’ award. It was published several times enjoying a huge success.
End of life and posthumous texts
In 1990 he became the Vice President of the Democratic PartyDemocratic Party (Serbia)
The Democratic Party is a political party in Serbia. It is described as a social liberal or social democratic party.-Pre-war history:The Democratic Party was established on 16 February 1919 from unification of Sarajevo parties independent radicals, progressives, liberals and the Serbian part of...
and one of the editors of the party’s newspaper "Demokratija" ("Democracy"). Pekic was a member of the P. E. N. Association
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
in London and Belgrade, and became Vice President of the Serbian P. E. N. Association between 1990-1992. He was elected to The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
in 1985, and was made a member of the Advisory Committee to The Royal Crown in 1992. Active both as an author and a public figure until his last day, Pekić died of lung cancer at his home in London on July 2, 1992. He was laid to rest at the famous 'Alley of Distinguished Citizens'
Novo groblje
Novo groblje is a cemetery complex in Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in Ruzveltova street in Zvezdara municipality. The cemetery was built in 1886 as the third Christian cemetery in Belgrade. The newly developed cemetery in that period had no chapel or church...
('Aleja zaslužnih građana') in Belgrade together with other distinguished figures from the social, political and cultural echelons of society. Posthumously, in 1992, H.R.H. Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia awarded Pekić the Royal Order of the Two-headed White Eagle, being the highest honour bestowed by a Serbian monarch.
A large body of his work was, and continues to be, published posthumously: Vreme reči ("The Time of Words"), 1993; Odmor od istorije ("A Break from History"), 1993; Graditelji ("The Builders"), 1994; Rađanje Atlantide ("The Birth of Atlantis"), 1996; Skinuto sa trake ("Transferred from Tapes"), 1996; U traganju za Zlatnim runom ("In Search of the Golden Fleece"), 1997; Izabrana pisma iz tuđine ("Selected Letters from Abroad"), 2000; Političke sveske ("Political Notebooks"), 2001; Filosofske sveske ("Philosophical Notebooks"), 2001; Korespondencija kao život, 1&2 ("Correspondence as a Life"), 2002-2003; Sabrana pisma iz tuđine ("Collection of letters from abroad"), 2004, Roboti i sablasti ("Robots and Wraiths", collection of unpublished plays), 2006, Izabrane drame ("Selected plays"), 2007, Izabrani eseji ("Selected essays"), 2007, Moral i demokratija ("Moral and democracy", a collection of interviews and essays), 2008, Marginalije i moralije (collected thoughts from published and unpublished work), 2008.
On the 1 and 2 July 2000, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
, in Belgrade, held a symposium with the theme: ‘Literary work of Borislav Pekić on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of his birth’. The essays from that symposium were published in 2003.
In 2006, his wife Ljiljana, credited with the abovementioned posthumously published work, started the Borislav Pekic blogwhere one can find published as well as yet unpublished works of Pekic.
Pekić has left a vast corpus of high literary quality characterized by following traits: narrative structures of growing complexity that, in the case of The Golden Fleece cross the fuzzy bounds of the post-modern novel and can be best described by the author's sub-title "Phantasmagoria" (this mammoth work is more than 3,500 pages long); the presence of autobiographical thread one can detect in all major Pekić's works, but especially in his vivid and unsentimental memoirs on his years as a political prisoner and essayist books on life in Britain; obsession with the theme of personal freedom crushed by the impersonal mechanism of the totalitarian power.
Works available in English translation
In chronological order of translation:- The Time of Miracles. A legend, translated by Lovett F. Edwards, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976, ISBN 0151904642; Evanston (IL): Northwestern University Press, 1994, ISBN 0810111179.
- The Houses of Belgrade, translated by Bernard Johnson, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978, ISBN 0151421838; Evanston (IL): Northwestern University Press, 1994, ISBN 0810111411.
- The Generals or Kinship-in-Arms, play, translated by Vidosava Janković, "Scena" 13 (1990), pp. 143-53.
- Megalo Mastoras and His Work 1347 A.D., translated by Stephen M. Dickey and Doc Roc in The Prince of Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Serbian Short Stories, edited by Radmila J. Gorup and Nadežda Obradović, Pittsburg (PA): University of Pittsburg Press, 1998.
- How to Quiet the Vampire (An Excerpt), translated by Stephen M. Dickey and Bogdan Rakić, "Serbian Studies" 15 (1), 63-76, 2001; (PDF).
- How to Quiet a Vampire, translated by Stephen M. Dickey and Bogdan Rakić, Evanston (IL): Northwestern University Press, 2005, ISBN 0810117207 and ISBN 0810117193 (cloth text).
On Pekić
- Jelena Milojković-Djurić, Borislav Pekić's Literary Oeuvre: A Legacy Upheld, "Serbian Studies" 15 (1), 3-7, 2001; (PDF).
- Bogdan Rakić, Borislav Pekić: Sysiphus as Hero, "Serbian Studies" 15 (1), 9-23, 2001; (PDF).
- Angela Richter, Biblical Myths in Borislav Pekić’s Time of Miracles, "Serbian Studies" 15 (1), 25-34, 2001; (PDF).
- Olga Nedeljković, Do Supernatural Elements Exist in Borislav Pekić’s How to Quite a Vampire: The Poetics of a Magical Umbrella, "Serbian Studies" 15 (1), 35-49, 2001; (PDF).
- Borislav Pekic, How to Quiet a Vampire (An Excerpt), Translated by Stephen M. Dickey and Bogdan Rakić; (PDF).
- Jelena Milojković-Djurić, Voice from the Darkness: Borislav Pekić's The Years the Locusts Devoured, "Serbian Studies" 15 (1), 51-62, 2001; (PDF).
- In French : Nicolas Trifon (http://www.lekti-ecriture.com/contrefeux/Des-Aroumains-aux-Tsintsares.html).