By Danilo Kiš
Translated by Duska Mikic-Mitchell
Introduction by Joseph Brodsky
Afterword by William T. Vollmann
ISBN: 9781628975161
Publication Date: 8/26/2025
Description
Composed of seven dark tales, Tomb for Boris Davidovich presents variations on the theme of political and social self-destruction throughout Eastern Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. The characters in these stories are caught in a world of political hypocrisy, which ultimately leads to death, their common fate. Although the stories Kiš tells are based on historical events, the beauty and precision of his prose elevates these ostensibly true stories into works of literary art that transcend the politics of their time.
Praise
"Kis’s work is gripping, a set of clever modernist experiments with a frequent core of deadly seriousness; imagine Kafka encountering the Holocaust, or Borges visiting the Gulag without losing a sense of humor and you have a rough approximation of Kis’s accomplishment.” – Anthony Paletta, The Daily Beast
Biographical Information
Danilo Kiš was one of Serbia's most influential writers and the author of several novels and short-story collections, including The Attic, 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.