JEČAM I KALOPER OR EARLY SORROWS IN A GARDEN OF THE COLOUR OF MALLOW. THEMATISING FAMILY: THREE EXAMPLES IN CONTEM PORARY SERBIAN LITERATURE

Abstract

Generally percieved as utterly outstanding even in the oeuvre of Branko Ćopić and Danilo Kiš, the books A Garden of the Colour of Mellow and Early Sorrows had been critically acclaimed as the most poetic works of Serbian literarature of the 20th century. Almost four decades later, Rajko Petrov Nogo’s glosa Ječam i kaloper (Barley and Costmary) joined the aforementioned two in compatibility of spirit. Consequently, contemporary Serbian literature has been enriched by the entirely distinctive trinity of lyrically structured prose works. All three books are thematically concerned with childhood, family and homeland, each in their own way and to a certain extent, thematising the tragical experience of existence. They are connected by the autobiographical base and narrative perspective that freely fluctuates from a childlike, experienced perspective, to one of subsequent recollection. In a unique manner, a firm inner world has been created in all of them, equally built out of actual facts and the elements of a childlike experience of the real world.