Novel
Папокот на светот
Not translated into English
Venko Andonovski · 2000
Synopsis
A many-layered mystification. A meticulous clerk finds among the belongings of his brother V., a dead circus artist, a manuscript and diaries that he decides to publish. The first novel, in an archaising language, is a philosophical investigation in the manner of Eco, set in the ninth century, at the birth of Slavic writing; it is followed by a second novel and by V.'s diaries, a love story in the Yugoslavia of the end of the century whose characters answer those of the ancient tale.
Context
The novel appeared in 2000 from Tabernakul and enjoyed unprecedented success in Macedonia: twelve editions and more than thirteen thousand copies, when a local success usually sold one or two thousand. It received the international Balkanika Prize, awarded to a Macedonian for the first time, the Novel of the Year Prize and the Stale Popov Prize, then the Russian Yugra Prize. Translated into Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Russian, it has not appeared in French.
Who it is for
To discover, between Byzantium and a dying Yugoslavia, a play of mirrors between two eras and two loves.
Prizes and reception
Macedonian critics regard its author as the most representative figure of the postmodern novel in his country.