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A Novel
Read an excerpt
The Book is
not quite a novel, although almost half of it
takes the form of a narrative, neither is it an essay, although quite a
lot of what is said in it adopts that style. It is actually closest to
that rare type or "para-genre" of satirical prose embodied in the
exemplary In Praise of Folly by the famous
humanist from Rotterdam. Instead of the "Folly," of human manias and
absurdities, here, in a similar kind of double-talk, the books
themselves "speak," those monuments to our intelligence, ambitions and
self-importance, and they primarily "speak" by making an analogy between
man's fate and that of books—to man's detriment, of course.
"Zivkovic's notes of erudite
perversity, playful textual misdirection, and parodic exaggeration make
The Book a celebration of and lamentation for all books, an
epitome and paragon of the species."
Locus, USA
"[A] novel of brilliant reversals
(...) Zivkovic elegantly renders an author's worst night-terror and in
doing so has written a tale that teeters between tremendously funny and
deadly serious satire."
Review of Contemporary Fiction,
USA
Published
in the USA by Prime Books,
2003, in South Korea by Munidang,
2004, in Greece by Kedros Publishers,
2006, and in Spain by 451 Editores, 2007.
To be published in Portugal, by Cavalo de Ferro, 2008, and in the UK by PS Publishing, 2008.
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