Miss Tamara, The Reader
Original title: Čitateljka. Publishers in English: Polaris (2006), PS Publishing (UK, 2009).
In this suite of eight stories, the three ages of woman—youth, midlife and senescence—engage in a complex and fruitful dance. A young Miss Tamara is lured by a series of postcards concealed in library books. A middle-aged Miss Tamara discovers that her new reading glasses turn the pages blank. An afternoon’s reading is disturbed by the realisation that all books have turned fatally toxic. A mysterious phone call leads to a book which blinds its readers but also to romance. Woven through these seemingly simple narratives are deep themes of youth and ageing, memory and loss, solitude and companionship, and the relationship between the physical and the mental life. Above all this is a book about reading: its pleasures, rituals, essential preciousness. Reading as an obsession which can not only isolate, but also lead to discovery and love.
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Zoran Zivkovic
Zoran Živković (born 1948) is a writer, essayist, researcher, publisher and translator. He was born in Belgrad, Serbia. His writing belongs to the middle European fantastika tradition, and shares much in common with such masters as Mikhail Bulgakov, Franz Kafka and Stanislaw Lem.
Zoran Živković graduated in literary theory from the Department of General Literature of the University of Belgrade in 1973. In 2000 his engagement in SF and in literary studies discontinued, and turned entirely to writing prose.
In 2007 he was appointed professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade where he now teaches Creative Writing.
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