Belgrade Noir

Miloš was suddenly confronted with a truth that he had always suspected somewhere deep down. The man inflicting the harm, reponsible for the violence, was his father. He looked as indifferent as he did at the breakfast table. A man without humanity who could take a life as nonchalantly as he might sip a whiskey.

Years of Xenonautical strategic thinking kicked in. Miloš called up a GIF of talking lips on a white background and lit up the screen with them. He also filtered his voice through an alien distorter. “Gvero! Your actions are being monitored in real time. Desist now! Failure to do so will result in the Supreme Intergalactic Court ordering your immediate liquidation. The court is already considering its verdict in the case of the death of Dragana Gvero.”

Miloš’s father gaped at the screen — baffled, terrified. He dropped the Comrade Tito statue, which hit the floor with a thud, narrowly missing Katarina, who had also turned her eyes to the screen, as bewildered as her attacker. Without even glancing down at her, Gvero ran out of the room and a moment later Miloš heard what he assumed was the front door open.

The lips continued, “Thank you, Katarina, for your courageous role in ensnaring the defendant.” The lips morphed into a big eye. It winked.

Miloš walked into the kitchen to brew a cup of tea. As he sat back down at his laptop, he thought, How on earth can I follow that? Within three hours, he had cleared the entire Middle East of aliens.

Mission complete.

About the Contributors

Vladimir Arsenijević was born in 1965 in Pula, Croatia. His first book — In the Hold

, an antiwar novel — won the 1994 NIN Award and was translated into twenty languages. Since then, Arsenijević has published numerous novels, graphic novels, and essay collections. He is the founder and president of Association KROKODIL that runs one of the most distinguished literary festivals in the former Yugoslavia. He lives and works in Belgrade.

Muharem Bazdulj was born in Travnik, Bosnia, in 1977. His novels, essays, and short stories have appeared in twenty languages. Three of his books have been translated into English and published in the UK and US: The Second Book, Byron and the Beauty, and Transit, Comet, Eclipse. He lives in Belgrade.

Jamie Clegg is a PhD student of comparative literature at the University of Michigan. She is interested in contemporary Diné (Navajo) poetry and histories, and modern Palestinian literature. She translates from Arabic and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.

Verica Vincent Cole is a crime writer whose novels introduced to readers Belgrade’s first fictional private detective. Cole was born in Belgrade, where, prior to moving to Malta in 1999, she had her own practice as an attorney. After obtaining her degree in international maritime law at the IMO International Maritime Law Institute, she stayed to work at the Institute. She lives in the old city of Rabat, Malta, with her husband Kenneth and their two dogs.

Rachael Daum received her BA in creative writing from the University of Rochester and MA in Slavic Studies from Indiana University; she also received certificates in literary translation from both institutions. Her original work and translations have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Two Lines, EuropeNow, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and elsewhere. Daum is the communications and awards manager at the American Literary Translators Association and lives in Cologne, Germany.

Mirjana Đurđević was born in Belgrade in 1956. She has published seventeen novels, as well as several short stories and essays. Her novel Deda Rankove riblje teorije (Grandpa Ranko’s Fish Theories)

won the Female Pen Award in 2004. For her novel Kaya, Belgrade and the Good American, she received the prestigious Meša Selimović Award for the best book in the region in 2009. Her works have been translated into English and Slovenian.

Sibelan Forrester is a professor of Russian language and literature at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Her translations include Irena Vrkljan’s lyrical autobiography The Silk, the Shears and Marina, Milica Mićić Dimovska’s novel The Cataract, and a book of selected poetry by Marija Knežević, Tehnika Disanja (Breathing Technique).