THE PRINCE OF FIRE

paper 0-8229-5661-6 A richly varied, if somewhat uneven, collection of 35 stories by as many postwar writers, only a handful of whom (e.g., Danile Ki—, Miodrag Bulatovi—, and Milorad Pavi—) are well known in English translation. Rural, socialist, and magical realism are all amply represented in work that ranges from several sketchy vignettes to enjoyably baroque pieces like Pavi—’s —The Wedgewood Tea Set— and Mileta Prodanovi—’s wild historical fantasy —Degli— Impiccati.— A few are superb: Borisklav Peki—’s empathetic tale of a medieval artisan’s aesthetic integrity in a time of plague and wholesale savagery (—Megalos Mastaros and His Work, 1347 a.d.—); Bulatovi—’s emotional portrayal of a macho egomaniac (—The Lovers—); Filip David’s imaginative reworking of the Wandering Jew legend(—The Prince of Fire—); and David Albahari’s technically ingenious Holocaust tale (—The Great Rebellion at the Stuln Nazi Camp—). There are at least a dozen more fine stories in their unusual and satisfying anthology.