THE NARRATIVE WORLD OF MIODRAG BULATOVIĆ

Abstract

The literary opus of Miodrag Bulatović (1930-1991), in the context of our literature, brought a break with traditional narrative models, which was mainly reflected in emphasizing the ironic and parodic, sarcastic and grotesque transposition of reality. Even in his initial short story collections Devils are coming and Wolf and the Bell, the author captured the imagination of the reading and critical audience, evoking the anxiety of a man fitting both patriarchal and contemporary profiles. Misery and insecurity, caused by the exposed and crumbling existence of heroes, were treated as a crucial problem in these works. In an unprecedented fashion, merging opposing values ‒ rough and gentle, angelic and demonic, earthly and mythic, humane and brutal, real and unreal, mundane and extraordinary ‒ the narrator expressed the totality of the physical world and the human soul. The eternal story of man and his destiny was presented in a complex tapestry of symbols which were arranged in a seemingly chaotic and illogical way, yet kept flowing into a single associative array.