Description:

Written between 1980 and 1986, the six stories that constitute "The Lute and the Scars" (as well as an untitled piece by the author, included here as "A and B") were transcribed from the manuscripts left by Danilo Kiš following his death in 1989. Like the title story, many of these texts are autobiographical. Others resurrect protagonists belonging to Kiš's fellow Central European novelists, allowing readers to identify, perhaps, depending on the level of obfuscation, fantasy, and historical accuracy, figures dreamed up by ?d?n von Horv?th and Endre Ady ("The Stateless"), by the Yugoslavian Nobel laureate Ivo Andric ("Debt"), and by Piotr Rawicz. Against a background of oppressive regimes and political exile, readers will find that the never-ending debate between death and writing continues unabated in these stories--death as allegory or as a voluntary symbolic act, and writing as the one impregnable defense, writing as the only possible means of survival. ** ### From Bookforum The seven stories in *The Lute and the Scars* are gems of compressed Kis, and despite the sense that a fewremained unfinished at the writer's death, they rarely feel like the abandoned scraps or undeveloped ideas rescued from the files of a departed author. Their themes are varied, though several center on the fate of writers obscure or otherwise—a quality he shares with another writer, Roberto Bolano, whose oeuvre, short life, and flamboyant reception in the States mirror those of Kis's. —Eric Banks ### About the Author Danilo Kis was one of Serbia's most influential writers and the author of several novels and short-story collections, including "A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, The Encyclopedia of the Dead", and "Hourglass". In 1980 Kis was awarded the Grand Aigle d'Or from the city of Nice. He died in 1989 at the age of 54. Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. He is the author of two novels, Politics and The Escape, and a book on the international art of the novel, which won a Somerset Maugham Award. In 2003, he was chosen by Granta magazine as one of the Best Young British Novelists. His work is translated into 30 languages.