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Sad Passing of Academician Milorad Pavić
The funeral will take place on Thursday, December 3rd at 12 noon at the Novo Groblje cemetery in Belgrade.
“I entered into literature on my own, I live in it on my own and I shall depart from it on my own when the time comes,” said this famous writer.
Academician and author Milorad Pavić, professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Belgrade University, passed away yesterday of complications following a heart attack at the age of 80. Pavić was one of the most translated Serbian authors, primarily thanks to his “Dictionary of the Khazars”, which gained popularity throughout the world.
The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences has announced that the funeral will be held on Thursday, December 3rd, at 12 noon at the Novo Groblje cemetery in Belgrade.
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Milorad Pavić (1929-2009), author of cult novels “Dictionary of the Khazars”, “Landscape Painted with Tea”, “Inner Side of the Wind”, “Writing Box”, “Star Cape”, “Unique Item”, “The Tale that Killed Emily Knorr”, “Fake Mole”, collection of stories “Iron Curtain”, “The Horses of Saint Mark”, “Borzoi”, “New Tales from Belgrade”, “Souls are Bathing for the Last Time”, and a series of other books – his literary creation included lexicon-novels, crosswords, tarot cards, the discovery of antique writing boxes, he interpreted astrological signes, passed from life to death, from wake to sleep, from the real to the unreal.
The nether world was what interested him the most. The nether world, he said, is a part of our life, except we forgot that long ago. Onlz artists, women and the Church are, perhaps, aware of this.
He wrote poems, stories, novels, essays, studies in the history of literature, plays, translated Pushkin and Lord Byron. He became a regular member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991. He was member of the European Association for Culture and the Serbian PEN Center.
“Dictionary of the Khazars” was the first book that could be read on a computer, in the order it was presented, but in any other order as well. The readers could choose a term and the path by which to reach the end of the novel. Pavić realized in time that the end of literature as we had known it for a long time had come. Images, sounds, signs, compete successfully with the linearity of language, which makes it akin to a slow train. So he tried to create non-linear writing in his books, a writing closer to “the blossoming of the thoughts and dreams of man” and less dependent on the chronological stringing of words into sentences.
Thus the striving to, relying on the initiative of the reader, create new forms of reading, and writing as well. Thus his striving to create a novel-dictionary, a novel-crossword puzzle, a novel-clepsydra, a fortune-telling novel, or a novel for those unfamiliar with astrology, an interactive play in the form of a theater menu, an interactive story in which the readers choose their own path. In such striving, he explained, he was assisted by the readers. Primarily by female readers, since they have a different way of perceiving his books, since they are unburdened by the epic past.
In the 20th century he became the author of the 21st century: “Some critics, such as Lance Olsen, think so. Others, such as Alexander Genis, think I have tried to go as far as possible into the past, towards ancient literary lore. In any case, I entered into literature on my own, I live in it on my own and I shall depart from it on my own when the time comes. As for the future, I do now know what will become of the book and of literature. Perhaps it will return to its epic, oral, pre-Guttenberg form, in a manner that we can hardly imagine. In any case, it can already be sensed today that the book and its global reputation will not be the same in the 21st century as in the past one, although only a few years separate us from this past.”
He was the first among Serbian authors to have his own website, books without covers, which are read on a computer. That is why he said that the book must change and adapt to the future, which is merciless as all futures have been. Reading is doubtlessly becoming just as important as writing. He was the first to write a novel-sea. But the reader need not know how to swim to be able to read it. The novel “Unique Item” is a novel with a hundred different endings. He liked to cooperate with his readers, for there are, he used to say, more gifted readers than there are gifted writers.
His heroes were also perfumes, or identifying coupons of the protagonists, but also weapons of death and crime. It is well known who has the sharpest nose – the Foul Fiend. He directs and plans his murders by smell. In his novels dreams are sold and purchased. The ones as yet undreamed, telling of your future, are the most expensive. Mankind is, after all, more gifted in sleep than in waking hours. He claimed that the borders between genres were becoming extinct, that the contemporary novel, read on a computer, should not be more than fifty pages long.
In the novel “The Tale that Killed Emily Knorr” storytelling (the story) kills the listener (the reader). Thus literature, with Pavić, becomes dangerous to the reader.
“In this book the author is accused of being able to kill with a story. Off course this is not possible, but when the world wants to make somebody look bad (which is something that, here in Serbia, we have witnessed directly), then all means are used. In my novel the story is, after all, able to kill. It can kill the one that created it, that is to say – its writer.”
Zoran Radisavljević. “Politika”, Belgrade, December 1st 2009
The New York Times – Milorad Pavic, Serbian Author of Novel Novels, Dies at 80
Fantasy Book Critic – Milorad Pavic, Famous Serbian Author of Experimental Fiction Dies at Age 80
The Guardian – Milorad Pavic Obituary
MONUMENT TO MILORAD PAVIĆ IN MOSCOW
A monument to Serbian writer Milorad Pavić was unveiled on June 24th 2009 in Moscow, in front of the “Library of Foreign Languages”. This bronze bust by famous Russian sculptor Grigori Potocki has been erected on the green in front of the library, alongside monuments to other foreign writers from Dante onwards. On the occasion of this honor Milorad Pavić said the following:
“I would not be where I am today had it not been for Russian readers and my books and plays in the Russian language. In the days when I was not yet translated into Russian, Russian readers used to come to the “Library of Foreign Languages” and read my prose in the original, or various translations. So I was told once when Jasmina Mihajlović, my wife, and I came to Moscow on the occasion of the staging of one of my play. That is why this bust is here today, before the ”Library of Foreign Languages”, to which I am therefore doubly grateful. “The monument is here because of my books, which were published in Russian by many, whom I would now like to mention, and also to thank the magazine “Inostranaya Literatura”, renewed magazine “Yasnaya Polyana” published by the Tolstoy museum in Yasnaya Polyana, publishers “Amphora”, “Azbooka” and “ZebraE”, as well as the Russian theaters that staged and are still showing my interactive plays. These are: Moskovski hudozhestveni teatar of Chekhov, LENSOV in St. Petersburg, theaters in Voronezh and Prokopyevsk and others from Moscow to Siberia. I would also like to thank the directors of my plays, as well as the actors and the publishers who recorded some of my novels on CD “Audiobooks”. Without my fabulous translators Ms. Larissa Savelieva and Ms. Nataliya Vagapova my prose and my plays would not have appeared in the Russian language. Finally, I owe special gratitude to the Russian newspapers and magazines, the Russian internet, television and radio, to Russian slavists and literary and theatrical critics who paid considerable attention to my work.
Thanks to famous Russian sculptor Grigori Potocki, who came to Belgrade with his wife several years ago and there created my portrait, which is before you now, I can say that I have received during my lifetime more than many do not receive even after death. Thank you all.”
FOREIGN EDITIONS
More than 100 translations of Milorad Pavić’s books have been published in the 21st century.
View partial list of books and web gallery with book covers of foreign editions.
MILORAD PAVIĆ’S NEW NOVEL „SECOND BODY“ ON THE WEB
Milorad Pavić’s new novel “Second Body” is being translated into ten or so different languages. The English translation by Dragana Rajkov is now being posted in sequels on the English page of this web site. Readers in the English language will have one of the five chapters of the novel at their disposal every Monday. After five weeks they will have completed the novel “Second Body”. Readers in Serbian, Russian, Polish and soon in Greek, Spanish, Slovakian, Bulgarian and Romanian have or will have the new novel by Milorad Pavić printed in their own language.
DOCTORAT HONORIS CAUSA TO MILORAD PAVIĆ
The Sofia University “Clement of Ohrid” has awarded in February of this year Doctorat Honoris Causa to Milorad Pavić by unanimous decision. The author has been invited by the rector of the university to receive this honorary title in Sofia.
„DICTIONARY OF THE KHAZARS“ AS E-BOOK
Milorad Pavić’s novel „Dictionary of the Khazars“ was published as an e-book in Stockholm in 2005. This edition contains the Serbian original of this novel-lexicon, as well as translations of the novel into Swedish, English and Russian. The female version of the „Dictionary of the Khazars“ e-book can be ordered through Amazon here and the male version here at the price of $9 each.
„UNIQUE ITEM“, A DELTA- NOVEL by MILORAD PAVIC
The author of „Dictionary of the Khazars“ has once more found a new, as yet unseen type of literary play for you: a delta-novel!
It’s a tale of love and a detective „multy-ending story“ that diverges into one hundred branches and leads you towards one hundred different endings. Each copy has a different end, and so your copy will differ from all other copies. Every reader obtains his personal one.
You will have a UNIQUE ITEM!
Milorad Pavic (born 15. X 1929 in Belgrade, Serbia – Sign Libra, Ascendant Scorpio, Aztec horoscope, Serpent). Serbian prose writer and poet, historian of Serbian literature of XVII – XIX century, expert on Serbian Baroque and symbolistic poetry, translator of Pushkin and Byron, university professor (lectures at New Sorbonne, Vienna, Novi Sad, Freiburg, Regensburg, Belgrade), full Member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (elected 1991). Is not a member of any political party. Pavic is a member of Société Européenne de Culture and of the International Council of the Moscow periodical „Inostrannaya Literatura“.
Pavic is the author of novels, poetry, short stories and one play. Pavic’s work has had more than 80 translations (in separate books) in different languages through the world. Milorad Pavic was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature by experts in Europe, the USA and Brazil. His wife is Jasmina Mihajlovic, writer and literary critic. They live in Belgrade.