The Waves of the Belgrade Sea

The Waves of the Belgrade Sea is a title wittily reminiscent of the fact that Belgrade lies on the shore of the former Pannonian Sea, while, on the other hand, it symbolically portrays the Balkan megalopolis as an urban sea inside of which storms and peaceful life periods take turns. Every man is a shipwreck survivor, but before he delves into his true inner loneliness, he must get acquainted with the world; first he must find and lose a great love. That is why Danilov has interwoven an irresistible heroine and a story of great love into the tale of the city, its streets and the famous Belgrade market, where you can often find the author himsel, fleafing through old books on the counters or plainly picking vegetables, always deeply aware of the enigmatic human destinies written on the faces which seem to testify to the centuries gone by. Danilov’s hero is searching for his father, the greatest mystery of his life, thus continuing in the vein of the dominant subjects of the Serbian prose of the XX century, hallmarked by the works of the writers such as Bora Stanković, Ivo Andrić, Miloš Crnjanski, Danilo Kiš, Slobodan Selenić, David Albahari… Both the father and the son in Danilov’s novel are on a quest for truth, freedom and happiness – always present and yet never truly here.

– Aleksandar Jerkov