The Apology and the Last Days

Originally published in 1975, The Defense and the Last Days is the final volume in a trilogy of novels (preceded by The Rise and Fall of Icarus Gubelkian and How to Quiet a Vampire) about the aftermath of World War II by Borislav Pekic, one of the former Yugoslavia’s most important post-war writers. The narrator tells his story from prison, where he is serving time for the murder of a former Nazi official. As the novel unfolds, we learn that the victim was the same person whom, while a lifeguard during the war, the narrator saved from drowning, making him vulnerable to charges of collaboration. In this tragicomic tale, Pekic explores eternal questions of fate and individual responsibility.

Borislav Pekic (1930–1993) was born in Montenegro, Yugoslavia. In 1948 he was accused of organizing a student conspiracy against the state and sentenced to fif-teen years of hard labor. He was pardoned in 1954. Ten years later he won a major Yugoslav literary prize for The Time of Miracles. One of Yugoslavia’s most acclaimed writers, he lived in England from 1971 until his death.

Bojan Mi?ic holds an M.A. in comparative literature from San Diego State University.