"The Galatians are a warlike people. They have a very high opinion of themselves though others mock them. It is said of them
that they reek of onion and brandy, that they are wild men and barely literate. Eternally poor, the Galatians consider it
a sin to throw away bread or burn a book. Whenever attacked by an enemy, they abandon what little they own and flee. The only
load they hoist onto their scraggy horses are their books written in a strange alphabet. In times of war, starving, they retreat
before the enemy, with their books. So it is easier to set fire to the Galatians' houses than their books."
The Galatians are here a synonym for the Serbs. These ironic lines introduce the debut novel "Emperor of the Galatians", by
the Serbian author Mihajlo Kazic. The book was written in the city of "Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles in the
year of Our Lord 1987". It is an extraordinary book full of mysticism, allusions and riddles, which at first glance remind
one of Milorad Pavics bestseller "Dictionary of the Khazars", which Kazic swears he has never read.
At the outset, it has to be said that those who enjoy Umberto Eco cannot avoid reading Mihajlo Kazic. Kazic understands how
to retain the tension until the very end - and beyond, and to captivate the attention of the reader repeatedly, by utilizing
the minimum of plot elements and extremely thrifty stylistic methods, but employing his enormous talent for spinning a yarn.
At times, the novel is a detective novel, then again a political thriller, mixed with a pinch of mysticism. The scene of the
action is an epochal combination of Babylon, ancient Rome and modern-day Los Angeles, placed in a dictatorial empire, a world
power shortly before the countdown.
The reader can be comfortable enough with this scenario, especially as his imagination is always given new momentum. The book
can only be understood however in the context of its genesis and the authors biography. It is the response of a young boy
born in Pristina (Kosovo) in 1960, who in his early youth moved to Novi Sad in Voivodina province. Here he completed a civil
engineering degree. Finally, with the resulting but short-lasting culture shock, he ended up in Los Angeles on a post-graduate
scholarship. The young, extremely talented mathematician, who at home had detested literature lessons, tried to compensate
for the loneliness, isolation, fast-moving, unrestrained and decadent lifestyle of the American metropolis, by excessive reading
and ultimately by writing himself. He now finds himself in the eminent company of writers such as Salman Rushdie and Amitav
Ghosh, who also scoop from the morass of the Babylonian estrangement and who rank amongst the hottest newcomers in Anglo-Saxon
literature.
Even though Kazic has neither reached the linguistic or stylistic potency, nor the compositional daring of the above authors,
the symbiosis of a systematic and precise-thinking scientist with a waffling southern Slav seeking a new cosmopolitan identity,
adds a great deal to the appeal of the content. Kazic hauls his story continually and everywhere with him, makes notes of
idioms and pictures, collects vocabulary and even uses his computer knowledge to write a programme to control redundant words.
As he did not know in which land and language his book would one day be published, he kept the vocabulary and syntax intentionally
easy to translate. "Mathematics is Music" is the title of one of the chapters in the book, and nothing, but nothing is included
here by chance.
The book was eventually published in Germany where, in 1989, the freshly qualified world citizen with his much sought-after
elite testimonials ended up. After an interim period at Stuttgart University, he today holds a senior position in a large
company in Neumarkt in Oberpfalz, Bavaria. Mihajlo Kazics curriculum vita is a success story, based on talent and hard work.
It is therefore not surprising that his first literary work also took the difficult hurdle of German book publishing with
extreme ease. This was perhaps because Kazic paid for the translation out of his own pocket, or because he caught the Gustav
Kiepenheuer publishing house in Leipzig at just the right moment in time. They were facing a difficult situation and were
searching for a new identity in a reunited Germany. In any event, it is an unusual book, which is clearly well above average.
