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The Great War

Велики рат
Serbia
Aleksandar-Gatalica-150x150.jpg.pagespeed.ce.I9--ns4BJx
Aleksandar Gatalica
We believe that the world has gone off the rails and that, following the end of the Great War, reality has been left without of shameful imbalance. In the new world, psychology will be replaced by parapsychology, physics by the occult, paranoia will overshadow common sense, and the family will give way to hordes and sects. But that doesn’t worry us in the least. We’ll have our hands full.

The Great War is an epic yet contemporary novel about the greatest historical turning point at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is not merely a portrait of an extraordinary number of human destinies, but a compelling depiction of the collapse of hope for a happy future for humanity. Amid these harrowing events, a series of compelling episodes unfolds—stories that are both real and unbelievable, imagined and lived; the triumph of emotions and the shadow of victory leave their mark. Gatalica follows the fates of more than seventy heroes from all the warring sides, shaping victors and vanquished, generals and opera singers, soldiers and spies, small, ordinary people, thereby encompassing the entire period.  This extraordinarily ambitious book has it all: tragic and joyful fates, instances of incredible yet utterly senseless heroism. The Great War never for a moment turns into a historical chronicle; it evolves from a document into incredible revelations, building an impressive narrative worthy of a true novel and a great work of art.

Aleksandar Gatalica (born in 1964 in Belgrade) is one of the most prominent contemporary Serbian writers. He studied world literature and classical philology. He made his literary debut in 1993 with the novel Linije života (Lines of Life). To date, he has published fifteen books, the best known of which are the short story collections Mimikrije (1996), Vek (The Century, 1999), and Beograd za strance (Belgrade for Strangers, 2004), as well as the novels Euripidova smrt (The Death of Euripides, 2002), The Invisible (2008), The Great War (2008), and The Last Argonaut (2018). He has received all major national awards for his works, which have been translated into ten European languages. He also devotes himself to translating ancient Greek literature and writing music reviews and essays.

The novel The Great War is one of the most widely read Serbian books of this millennium.