Cyclops

In his semiautobiographical novel, Cyclops, Croatian writer Ranko Marinkovic recounts the adventures of young theater critic Melkior Tresic, an archetypal antihero who decides to starve himself to avoid fighting in the front lines of World War II. As he wanders the streets of Zagreb in a near-hallucinatory state of paranoia and malnourishment, Melkior encounters a colorful circus of characters-fortune-tellers, shamans, actors, prostitutes, bohemians, and cafe intellectuals-all living in a fragile dream of a society about to be changed forever. A seminal work of postwar Eastern European literature, Cyclops reveals a little-known perspective on World War II from within the former Yugoslavia, one that has never before been available to an English-speaking audience. Vlada Stojiljkovic`s able translation, improved by Ellen Elias-Bursac`s insightful editing, preserves the striking brilliance of this riotously funny and densely allusive text.