The Encyclopedia of the Dead - Penguin Modern Classics by Danilo Kis

A counter-prophet attempts the impossible to prove his power; a girl sees the hideous fate of her sister and father in a mirror bought from a gypsy; the death of a prostitute causes an unanticipated uprising; and the lives of every ordinary person since 1789 are brought to life in the almighty Encyclopaedia of the Dead. In this wide-ranging collection of stories about humanity, society and relationships, Kiš plays with the distinction between fact and fiction, horror and comedy, drawing on key influences such as James Joyce and Franz Kafka. This was Kiš's final work, published in Serbo-Croatian in 1983. Kiš is one of the great European writers of the post-war period.

Danilo Kiš was born in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1935. After an unsettled childhood during the Second World War, in which several of his family members were killed, Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade where he lived for most of his adult life. He wrote novels, short stories and poetry and went on to receive the prestigious NIN Award for his novel Pešcanik. He died in Paris in 1989.