Mihajlo Pantić has spent his whole life in Novi Beograd, and evidently the world looks quite different from there. Because of his unique perspective, this collection of stories is like creative therapy for the soul. He writes an elegant, urban, postmodern prose that does not burden the reader with its style while addressing profound questions like love, life, loss, the Balkans... His carefully constructed, lilting style will dare the reader to finish the book in one sitting, but the stories beckon us to read them again and again.
Mihajlo Pantić (Belgrade, 1957), is a contemporary Serbian short story writer and literary critic. He has published over 40 books (short stories, essays, critical reviews, studies and anthologies) for which he has been awarded a large number of literary prizes in Serbia. His short story collections include: Hronika sobe (Chronicle of a Room, 1984), Vonder u Berlinu (Wonder in Berlin, 1987), Pesnici, pisci i ostala menažerija (Poets, Writers and the Rest of the Menagerie, 1992), Novobeogradske priče (New Belgrade Stories, 1994), Sedmi dan košave (Seventh Day of the Koshava wind, 1999), Ne mogu da se setim jedne rečenice (I Can't Remember One Sentence, 2000), Ako je to ljubav (If This Is Love, 2003), Ovoga puta o bolu (This Time about Pain, 2007), Priče na putu (Stories on the Road, 2010). His short stories have been translated into over 20 languages. He teaches the History of Serbian and South Slavic Literature and Creative Writing at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. Mihajlo Pantić is one of the vice-presidents of the Serbian PEN Center. He is also the editor of well known literary editions and of several Serbian literary periodicals and magazines.
