Dictionary of the Khazars. Female Version

“A storyteller equal to Homer” is the name given to the Serbian writer Milorad Pavić (1929–2009). A translator and professor, one of the representatives of postmodernism in European literature. He began as a poet and literary critic, but gained world fame as a prose writer. Pavić is considered one of the creators of the so-called “nonlinear prose” — the prose of the 3rd millennium. His books are often structured in the form of dictionaries, tarot cards, encyclopedias, theater, or mirrors. The writer’s works are characterized by simplicity and at the same time multidimensionality of texts that lure the reader into a magical game.

“Khazar Dictionary” (1984) exists in two versions — “male” and “female”, which differ in one sentence that affects the interpretation of some events. It is a novel-lexicon, structured in the form of a dictionary. In it, the author explores the mass conversion of the Khazars at the end of the 9th century to one of three religions — Christianity (Red Book), Islam (Green Book), or Judaism (Yellow Book). Each part contains entries in the form of encyclopedic articles, which sometimes contradict each other, which creates the effect of polyphony. The novel intertwines history, mysticism, philosophy, and literary play. It is the reader who chooses the sequence of articles, combines fragments into a single picture, or leaves them as a bizarre mosaic. This edition presents a female copy of the dictionary.