(For more info, you can check out this post about the launch of the series. And for first hand knowledge of the awesomeness of the SPIT lit, buy by Svetislav Basara.)

is wonderful, and worth reading in its entirety. Below are a few interesting excepts:

SPIT is an attempt to introduce the English-speaking world to Serbian literature. Supported in part by the Serbian Ministry of Culture, Bajac hopes to expose the global literary community to the challenging and innovative literature being produced by Serbian authors by publishing five translated selections of Serbian literature in English-speaking countries each year. The goal is to showcase the diversity and quality of Serbian authors, and for Serbian writers to become part of the global literary conversation. The first book to hit the American market will be Hamam Balkania, available in March, 2012.

SPIT faces many road blocks to entering English-speaking markets: media coverage of the 1990s wars damaged Serbia’s international reputation, sufficient funding is always a challenge and the works are not intended to be the type of blockbuster popular fiction that dominates so much of today’s publishing industry. Perhaps most daunting, not just for SPIT but international literature as a whole, is that only 3% of the books published annually in English are translated from a foreign language, according to the University of Rochester Three Percent Blog. [. . .]

Q: You took some very bold narrative risks in your most recent novel, Hamam Balkania. You write at the beginning of the book that you are pursuing the question of identity and you use both present and past-tense, first person and third person narrative voices, as well as dual storylines—one set in the present and one set in 1500s Ottoman empire—to find answers. How did you come to weave such a complicated story to answer such a difficult question?

A: I was very aware of the risky path I wanted to go. In the book, I am talking about exploring the ideas of spreading identity and of mixing cultures. I asked myself what would happen if I could put in one novel, very literally, the historical side of the story and the present side of the story. I wanted to say that there are different ways to show the issue of identity and mixing cultures. It sounds like it could be a very kind of artificial work but I said okay, I’ll take a risk.

I always tried to write on the issue of identity by showing one person going his own way but this book is connected to many more historical characters and living persons. I used historical persons as examples that living within two cultures or religions was possible. I wanted to say that this is the proof; they lived that life.

But the contemporary side of the book was a way of saying that this issue is still there- everywhere, absolutely everywhere. What is the conclusion? I don’t know the answer, but I wanted to make it a part of the game.

This risky way was a bit brave because it included other difficult issues as well: addressing the very negative myths about Serbs who became Muslim [during the Ottoman Empire]. There is this idea that they are traitorous, for example. It is still a big issue in the Balkans, in the Ex-Yu, in Serbia today.

I think I reached something that I have never reached before in any book I wrote. However, the book is not only written by the author, it is written by the reader as well. You can’t say that you’ve finished the writing of the book until it is read well.

The consequences of those ideas are still unknown to me, which I like. [. . .]

Q: What is the philosophical idea behind the SPIT (Serbian Prose in Translation) Program? How did you decide which books to include?

A: We started this with the very humble idea of “let’s try to show what we have.” And if we have any reactions from the world, we will be more objective in understanding our own literature. That’s a question not only on the quality of our literature but of our identity as well. Until we compare ourselves with others we do not know who we are.

We choose primarily the books that we think are good literature. Then again, we choose books as different from each other as much as possible to show a wide cross section of Serbian literature.

What we’ve come to understand from SPIT is this: not that we are one of the best literary nations in the world but that we are interesting enough. The positive critical reaction to the styles and the poetics among Serbian authors shows not only that we are different within the larger literary world, but also that we are different among each other. You have nations whose literature is all very similar. Okay, it’s dangerous to generalize but you know what I mean.

This is not the case with our literature; diversity is the main characteristic of literature in Serbia. We still have more books to show the world, even though this is a small country, with a small number of people. We feel that we are equal to other cultural nations, including the United States. That’s why our work must be shown to the world.

I am not talking about getting famous bestsellers; that is an entirely different kind of writing. But we have to try to get into these markets because our so-called “heavy mental” literature deserves to be read as well. The financial mathematics might not be there but the numbers of readers are.

The literal meaning of the word SPIT is a joke too. It’s like being named an ambassador. You never know when a politician says to someone, I am going to make you an ambassador, is it a praise or is it a punishment? Because it sounds like praise, but then again, it says I don’t want to see you around here. You are expelled from the country, kind of in a nice way. So SPIT is in the very same way a joke in that, “these are the authors we spit out.”

You can read the entire piece

According to Geopoetika’s publisher, Vladislav Bajac, “cultural promotion” is the main impetus behind launching this series, and their plan is to send PDF versions of the five books translated so far (with 5 more coming out this year) to everyone who might be interested. They are printing a limited number of paperback copies as well, so if you’re really interested, you can get a beautiful package of books in the mail, just as I did last week.

For more information about the series, you can visit which lists the first six titles in the series. And for more information, or to receive copies of the PDFs, I think the best thing to do is contact Tijana Spasic at tijana.spasic [at] geopoetika [dot] com.

I haven’t had a chance to read these titles yet (but I will! especially the Basara book—I was working at Dalkey when we brought out Chinese Letter, a totally crazy, fascinating, Beckett-like book), but here’s a brief overview of each. (Everything below is from the Geopoetika website FYI, so forgive any grammatical eccentricities):

by Svetislav Basara, translated from the Serbian by Randall A. Major

Masterfully intertwining the threads of waking and dreams into the fabric of present, past and future, Basara’s novel leads the reader into depths of reflection never imagined possible. Rising from the musty cellar of a local library in the backwaters of western Serbia, the author guides us through a fantastic maze of (fictitious or factual?) documentation to one of the greatest held secrets of all times: an ancient Brotherhood, meeting and planning in the realm beyond sleep, are guiding the destiny of humankind into the arms of Providence – from the future. Drawing the reader into a broad circle of eccentric characters, historical and literary figures (from Charles the Hideous to Nietzsche, Sherlock Holmes and Freud), Basara calls into question the unities of space and time, proving once and for all a truth that we all know in our heart of hearts: History is in the eye of the beholder.

by Vladislav Bajac, translated from the Serbian by Randall A. Major

To say that Hamam Balkania is a historical novel, is to reveal only one piece of a puzzle, the one which fits in the sky part of a large sea landscape. It is extremely important, that is true, but the way Vladislav Bajac performs his little literary alchemy trick by turning a grand, totalizing narrative into something personal, and thus giving it credibility, zest and liveliness, is truly amazing. The Ottoman empire and its subjects in Southeastern Europe, East and West, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and Koca Mimar Sinan, destruction and creation, are the crucial elements of this meticulously organized story. One of the two lines of the story starts with an unprecedent human drama of young men born and raised in one faith and nation who are forcefully taken to serve in the other; the line of the plot that takes place in the contemporary world, with Orhan Pamuk, Allen Ginsberg and Juan Octavio Prenz among others, is seemingly independent but strongly connected to the historical one. In a story of a friendship, of unique soul-searching and redemption, we are offered a picture of the world that gently warns us to be careful, patient and wise when forming opinions both of the things we know well, and of those that reached us through history.

by Zoran Zivkovic, translated from the Serbian by Alice Copple-Tosic

Once again Živković demonstrates the sheer power of storytelling in this complex cycle of interlocking narratives. Like one of Escher’s drawings, the narrative threads lead one through a dizzying labyrinth of recurring themes, images and characters, all of whom are linked with elegant mathematical precision: God and suicide, food and poison, monks, athletes, soldiers and soccer players all take their places in the circle-dance. Absurdity, surreality and humour abound; death is the ultimate destiny, yet always the next story offers infinite ways of escape.

“Lake Como“: by Srdjan Valjarevic, translated from the Serbian by Alice Copple-Tosic

Solitude is a wonderful thing if you can handle it, says the author of Lake Como, relying on his own experience of living in a voluntarily chosen margin. When his hero, a novelist, receives a Rockefeller scholarship to spend a month in Villa Maranese in Bellagio on Lake Como, he is bound to reconsider his measure of things, to find his place in a world of whose existence he was not aware of before. In his work, Valjarević is uncompromisingly open and honest both to others and to himself – no wonder his readers trust him and understand his need to be who he is, any time, at any cost. Be it in Belgrade, Bellagio or on the Island of Korčula, he keeps his mind open and the membrane of his identity permeable but firm. And because of this, the hero of the novel is able to have fun and enjoy in the fine things of this fleeting life. Because of this, solitude becomes him perfectly.

“Adulterers“: by Vida Ognjenovic, translated from the Serbian by Jelena Bankovic and Nicholas Moravcevich

In gripping true-confession style, the narrator speaks of love, of family history, of the fragile little things that make us what we are. A woman in the prime of her life, her world coming apart at the seams . . . Think you already know this story? Think again. It’s a brand-new tale in the skilful hands of Vida Ognjenović, whose well-known talents for the theatre are on full display in this award-winning venture into fiction. Join her leading lady, Amalija, on a soul-searching quest for true identity. If there really is such a thing . . .

by Mirjana Novakovic, translated from the Serbian by Terence McEneny

Serbia in the 18th century: battleground of empires. In Belgrade, safe for now behind the fortress walls, a Habsburg princess waits for love. Outside, fear stalks the land. And then the devil comes to town, untrusty servant in tow. Are the dead truly rising from their graves? Is the Last Judgement beginning here in the Balkans? (And can it be stopped in time?) The two royal narrators – one from Austria, one from Hell – join the hunt for the undead, travelling through history, myth and literature, into the dark corners of a land that has given every human language its most infamous word: Vampire.