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.
About the Author :
Radmila J. Gorup graduated from the University of Belgrade in English literature, and has an M.A. in French literature and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in linguistics from Columbia University. She received a Fulbright award to travel and lecture in Yugoslavia in 1986 and an ACLS grant to travel to Slovenia in 1991. Gorup is the author of The Semantic Organization of the Serbo-Croatian Verb, published in Germany in 1987, and has written numerous research articles and reviews on linguistics and on Serbian literature. She is guest editor for an issue of the Review of Contemporary Fiction dedicated to Milorad Pavic to be published in 1998, and is the president of the North American Society for Serbian Studies. She currently teaches in the Slavic Department of Columbia University.
Review :
The stories offer a wide variety of themes and styles and create a rich and satisfying whole, proving the good taste and knowledge of the editors, the aesthetic value of contemporary Serbian prose, and the need for a collection of this kind. . . . [It is] an outstanding contribution to the body of South Slavic/Eastern European literature available in English.
The short story genre occupies a prominant place in Serbian literature. This anthology is most representative of the contemporary Serbian short story. It displays vividly and dramatically not only the high artisitic standards achieved since World War II, but also the history, thinking, and mores of the people the stories portray. As such, the anthology is priceless.
The anthology offers a rich variety of storytelling that ranges from traditional realism to magical realism and postmodernism. Whether describing peasant life or urban dreamscapes, these are tales well told. highly recommended for literature collections in academic and large public libraries.
The translations are readable, the selection is sound, and the material is original and captivating. Recommended for all general and academic readers interested in world literature.
The Prince of Fire is a significant collection in that it provides much insight into the continuing relationship between social reality and artistic creation in Serbian fiction.
A thoughtful and rewarding reading experience to those who are curious enough to want to find out what Serbian storytellers of our day have to say to their contemporaries.
A fine collection of thirty-five tales—including a foreword and an introduction—that covers a wide variety of topics ranging from a story about an artist in the Middle Ages to the experience of life under communism. . . . The Prince of Fire is a significant book because it makes a valuable and welcome contribution to the South-East Slavic European Study in English. Since it depicts a very realistic picture of Serbia and, to some extent, of other areas of former and present Yugoslavia, this book would be very helpful to anyone interested in European Cultural Studies. The book makes for good and pleasurable reading, even for those who are not already acquainted with this region of the world.
