Impossible Stories I :: Zoran Živković

Impossible Stories I

by Zoran Živković

Translated from Serbian by Alice Copple-Tošić


Impossible Stories I is a collection of several of the author’s finest works, including Time Gifts, Impossible Encounters, Seven Touches of Music, The Library (winner of the 2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella), and Steps through the Mist. The perfect introduction to the incredible world of Zoran Živković.


Seven Touches of Music, contained in this edition, was selected for the “Music and Literature Reading List” created by Michelle Johnson, managing and culture editor of the prestigious “World Literature Today” US monthly literary magazine.


Reviews

  • …bursting with inventive scenarios, imaginative writing, and unforgettable characters.
    World Literature Today
  • Why isn’t Zoran Živković better known in this country? He possesses an imaginative ingenuity and charm similar to that of, say, Paul Auster or Italo Calvino, with bits of Kafka, Borges and Beckett mixed in… the narrative seductiveness of Zivkovic’s “impossible stories” remains distinctly his own. Open one of his books and prepare to be enchanted.
    Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book Review
  • …each of his novellas seems to spring from a single philosophical question. … Dreams, time-travel, reincarnation, storytelling: these are the building blocks of Živković’s stories. He forces us to think deeply about the act of writing and creation, and how the line between “reality” on the page and off is just a hazy shadow, and maybe only exists because we will it to. If these stories sound very “Borgesian,” then I’ve managed to convey their unique strangeness to you.
    Rachel Cordasco, Speculative Fiction in Translation
  • Impossible Stories might be approached as if one were inspecting a handsome piece of furniture, a cabinet in which each of any number of regularly sized and shaped drawers is built precisely to contain and to somehow exemplify its own metaphysical freight or uncanny puzzle, and it is in the rhythm and variety of the whole, too, that the nature of Živković’s craft can be apprehended and enjoyed.
    —Tony White, Wasafiri
  • …even though they own and use computers, Živković’s characters seem decidedly nineteenth century. They are as intelligent and as neurotic as Poe’s personae, and admirers of that master of the outre–or of Borges, Gogol, Capek, and Lem–will be enthralled by them.
    —Ray Olson, Booklist
  • …well worth reading for the ingenuity of Živković’s stories. He is extraordinarily clever and has a particular talent for devising awkward moral dilemmas for his characters. His writing is also … quite unlike that of anyone else.
    —Cheryl Morgan, Emerald City
  • …a rare masterpiece that achieves its objective with fluent and calculated flair.
    —Miranda Siemienowicz, Horrorscope

Details

  • Pages: 422
  • Trim size
    Hardcover: Trim size 5″ x 8″ (127mm x 203mm), with dj
  • ISBN
    Hardcover: 978-4-908793-06-6
    Ebook: 978-4-908793-30-1
  • List Price:
    Hardcover: US$34.00
    Ebook: U$6.99
  • Cover: Youchan Ito (Togoru Art Works)

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