Short stories
Кроника паланачког гробља
Isidora Sekulić · 1940
Synopsis
In the cemetery of a small town in Syrmia held by Austria, which is Zemun, each grave opens a story. Each part of the book starts from a stone and goes back up into the life of the one who rests beneath it: Kosta, who was nicknamed the Earthquake, Gospa Nola, the Vlaović family, children, ambitions. The small town speaks through them, with its judgements and its wit, and the figures of women have in it a strength unknown until then.
Context
The book was published in 1940, nearly three decades after her first collection, and the author gave it a definitive form, expanded and divided into two parts, in 1958. The title comes from a remark of her father, who had told her while crossing a cemetery that each grave was worth five books; to write it she read monographs and chronicles of Zemun. The Serbian National Theatre staged “Gospa Nola” in 2025.
Who it is for
Seven long short stories, in a dense, meditative prose, which refuse chronological order. It helps to know that Zemun, today a district of Belgrade, was an Austrian town until 1918.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the most accomplished and mature work of its author, and regularly reissued among the Serbian classics.