(From Geoffrey Locke’s Foreword)

Sonja Besford was born in Belgrade. She has five books published in Serbian. This is her first poetry collection written in English.

“… It’s a rare collection in which almost any poem you chance upon in this initially selective process of reading has the power – whether what it says is immediately clear or is more complex and requires a little more time – to hold the reader’s attention at once.
Sonja Besford’s poems in this vibrant and arresting book… have just that ability. She writes with impressive command in a language not her mother tongue, which is Serbian, but refuses even to hint at the difficulties that task might present. It is almost as if the second language, English, is commanding her. Privately she speaks of Serbian as a ‘wonderful husband’ with whom she can feel too comfortable, and English as a ‘vigorous young lover’ driving her crazy with his ‘passion, unpredictability, energy, originality and quite often delightful simplicity’.
…Sonja Besford specialises in a quality of unexpectedness which makes her variations of traditional themes enthralling – and disconcerting… Sonja Besford deserves an Oxford English Dictionary entry for supplying a new verb ‘to februar’, to the English language… Her English readers are lucky to have this poet working so fruitfully – and movingly – in their language.”

(From the Foreward by Alan Brownjohn)

Price: £10.00

The oral Epics of the Serbian people are unique. Based on history and legend, their tales range from high tragedy, told with simple dignity, through descriptions of historic splendour and of stirring deeds and dramatic adventures (frequently laced with humour), to knockabout farce. The robust characters they portray are a recognisable mixture, in a Balkan setting, of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and even James Bond.
The men and women bards who composed and performed these traditional oral ballads over many centuries so constantly improved, refined, and polished them that they developed into the richest, as well as the most entertaining body of epic literature in any European language. In this book a representative selection of thirty of the finest ballads has been freely translated into English in an attractive, fluent and readable style which, without sacrificing accuracy, fully reveals the poetic grandeur, freshness, zest, and humour of the originals.

CONTENTS: FOREWORD * INTRODUCTION * NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION AND PRONUNCIATION (XLpp) * THE EPIC BALLADS: Of the mediaeval Empire: Tsar Dushan’s Wedding; Saint Peter and his Mother; The Building of Ravanitsa; Banovich Strahinya Of the Battle of Kosovo: Tsar Lazar and Tsaritsa Militsa; Stefan Musich; The Maiden of Kosovo; The Death of the Mother of the Yugovichi Of Marko Kralyevich: Marko’s First Heroic Deed; Marko drinks Wine during Ramadan; The Ploughing of Marko Kralyevich; How Marko went Hunting with the Turks; Marko Kralyevich and Musa the Highwayman; Marko Kralyevich and the Eagle; How the Turks came to Marko’s Slava; The Death of Marko Kralyevich Of the Outlaws: How Miyat Tomich became an Outlaw; Starina Novak and Bold Radivoye; Starina Novak and Knez Bogosav; Old Vuyadin; Mali Radoyitsa Of the Noblemen: The Death of Voivoda Priyezda; How the Brothers Yakshich shared their Inheritance; Ailing Doichin; The Ban of Zrin and the Maiden Begzada Of the Border Raiders: Ivo Senkovich and the Aga of Ribnik; Tadia Senyanin Of the Montenegrins: The Three Prisoners; How they took Beg Lyubovich’s Sheep Of the Nineteenth-Century Uprisings: The Start of the Revolt against the Dahiyas * APPENDIX – NOTES ON THE BALLADS.

* “This is certainly one of the best, if not the best translation of the epic ballads into English.”

Dr E.D.Goy (South Slav Journal)

* “Arguably the most readable translation of the songs yet published . . . Locke’s translations may well be the finest available.”

Celia Hawkesworth (Slavonic & E. European Review)

* “Locke’s settings have all the sheen of old silver, even its patina. One has the strong impression that one is not in fact reading a translation but enjoying a universal work of art – a song sung in its mother-tongue.”

Professor Nada Milošević-Djordjević (Foreword to the first edition)

Price: £15.00

“Jovan Hristić is perhaps the last great Eastern European poet who is not known in the West. One may say of him, what Auden said of Cavafy, that his attitude toward poetic vocation was an aristocratic one. He wrote as if the ancient Greek and Roman poets were his contemporaries. A wise man who lived in troubled times, he left us poems of uncommon eloquences and great beauty. The publication of these translations is major literary event.”

Charles Simic

Jovan Hristić (1933-2002) was one of the most respected and unobtrusively influential figures to emerge in Serbian letters in the last half century. Philosopher, playwrite, literary and theatre critic and commentator, poet, for many years he worked as a literary editor and his influence on what Nolit published and hence a part of what eventually became available to the Belgrade reading public was by no means insignificant. But most probably it is his poetry that will live on and maintain his reputation as a writer. His poetic output was not large and he tended to keep his writing of verse in a separate compartment from his other ‘more serious’ activities. Yet his poetic mode of expression, idiom and style are highly characteristic and mark him out clearly from others of his generation. His poetry is centred on the Classical world of Greece, on the Adriatic and Aegean seas and on boats, seafaring and the nostalgia of past voyages. At the same time he presents with sometimes startling imagery a philosopher's meditations on the metaphysical questions of being and the meaning of an individual life, in his last poems with the urgency of the awareness of its approaching end. The translations preserve the precision and directness of the originals and their clarity makes them readily accessible to the English reader.

Bernard Johnson, former Head of Language Studies at the London School of Economics, has translated widely from Serbo-Croat and Russian. He was editor of New Writing in Yugoslavia (Penguin, 1970). Many of the translation of poems in this volume were produced in close consultation with the poet. He died suddenly only a few days after submitting the manuscript of this book for publication.

Price: £15.00

CONTENTS: Ackowledgements * Jewish identity in literature * The Jews in Serbian state * The Jewish literary heritage in Serbia * Jewish writers in modern Serbian literature * The identity, language, and situation of Jewis writers * Notes * Bibliography * Index.

»Predrag Palavestra's book is an insightful analysis of the contribution made by Jewish writers to Serbian literature. Stepping beyond purely literary concerns, Palavestra reviews the social, cultural and political position of the Jewish community in Belgrade, Serbia and more generaly in the Balkans. It is largely a history of compromise between integration into wider community and preservation of a unique identity being forced constantly to ask the questions »Who am I?« and »Where do I belong?« Palavestra offers the reader a challenging enquiry into the Serbian context of a perennial issue faced by Jewish communities the world over.«
Dr. David A. Norris, Nottingham University, UK
“As a literary critic of broad horizons, Predrag Palavestra, describes the literary uniqueness of many Jewish writers and their importance in literature of the former Yugoslavia. With an exceptional sensitivity Palavestra brings together his wide knowledge of literature, history, sociology, prosody and other disciplines, and indicates in the essence of each individual author, and his or her unique and distinctive voice within a large literary orchestra.”
Dina Katan ben Zion, Moznaim (Jerusalem), No. 9/1999
“Predrag Palavestra has written a fascinating and comprehensive history of the position of Jews in general and Jewish writers in particular in Serbian culture. In addition to bringing to our attention many writers who have been almost forgotten, Palavestra sheds new light on the contributions of such well-known figures as Isak Samokovlija, Oskar Davičo, Danilo Kiš and David Albahari.”
Prof. Andrew Wachtel, Northwestern University, USA
Predrag Palavestra is former President of the Serbian PEN and head of the Department for Language and Literature of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was editor of “Knji`evne novine” (1958-1965) and “Savremenik” (1966-1973) and the director of the Belgrade Institute for Liuterature and Art (1969-1976). He is the author of numerous books on Serbian literature, and has lectured at the universities throughout the world.