DIVAN · Genres
Humour
11 published works. Explore books by literary genre and discover new works.
Autobiography
Autobiography — Branislav Nušić. Nušić looks back on childhood, school, first romances and growing up with a sharp sense of humour. His recollections also expose the vanity of education, social ambition and the way people polish their own life stories.
Branislav NušićAutobiographyeBook · AudiobookBakonja, Friar Brne
Bakonja, Friar Brne — Simo Matavulj. Before Bakonja arrives at the monastery, he already knows what makes a friar’s life desirable: a good horse, clean linen, a warm bed, meat, wine and the respect of everyone he meets. His relatives have another reason for sending him there. The Jerković family has supplied generations of friars, and the next appointment promises to keep both honour and material advantage within the right branch of the family.
Simo MatavuljNoveleBookFather Ćira and Father Spira
Father Ćira and Father Spira — Stevan Sremac. A village with two comfortable priests ought to have room enough for both. In Father Ćira and Father Spira, prosperity is precisely what makes rivalry so inventive. There is food to exchange, wine to praise, furniture to compare and a daughter in each household whose future can be discussed without anyone admitting to a plan.
Stevan SremacNoveleBookIvko’s Slava
Ivko’s Slava — Stevan Sremac. A house prepared for one feast becomes the centre of a town that will not stop celebrating. Ivko the quilt-maker has saved his best food and drink for his slava, the annual observance of his family’s patron saint. He knows the duties of a good host and takes pride in meeting them. His friends know those duties too. The comedy begins when they discover how much can be demanded in the name of friendship, custom and one more glass.
Stevan SremacShort storyeBookNo Escape
No Escape — Radoje Domanović. Every editor in Nigde spasa (No Escape) has only a small request. An article on vines, a contribution on raising foals, a brief patriotic story: surely an educated writer can oblige. Their courtesy makes refusal harder, and the narrator’s attempt to find a subject becomes more oppressive than the work itself. What begins with a ruined afternoon grows into a pursuit through streets, shops and finally the countryside.
Radoje DomanovićShort storyeBook · AudiobookPrince Marko Among the Serbs Again
Prince Marko Among the Serbs Again — Radoje Domanović. What happens when a nation gets the hero it keeps asking for? Domanović gives the question an embarrassingly literal answer. Prince Marko, exhausted by centuries of appeals to rise from the grave, obtains permission to return.
Radoje DomanovićSatireeBook · AudiobookThe Marriage of Peter Carrington
The Marriage of Peter Carrington — Svetozar Ćorović. Peter Carrington’s friends send him on a search for a wife, leading him into one comic entanglement after another. Ćorović brings vanity, friendship and small-town life into the marriage quest.
Svetozar ĆorovićNoveleBook · AudiobookThe World
The World — Branislav Đ. Nušić. The clock strikes three, a daughter brings her father back from sleep, and the newspaper offers the comforting question of what Russia thinks. In Toma Melentijević’s house, even the old furniture has its place in the family. His friend Sima has a programme for retirement that would turn every passing incident into entertainment. Toma prefers the garden, the poultry and a quiet cup of coffee.
Branislav Đ. NušićDramaeBookTheatre in a Small Town
Theatre in a Small Town — Radoje Domanović. A small town notices everything: a missing rooster, a badly played card, a neighbour's talent for preparing radishes. Its narrator treats this vigilant attention as proof that provincial life nurtures talent. What follows tests that claim by bringing a theatre into the town's ordinary routines.
Radoje DomanovićShort storyeBook · AudiobookWerther
Werther — Laza Lazarević. A spa is a place to recover one’s health, and an excellent place to lose one’s perspective. Lazarević begins by comparing a fashionable visit to the baths with a war: both demand preparation, waste money and end in negotiations at home. Among the officers, officials, card players and self-appointed experts stands Janko, a thirty-year-old man whose feelings still expect the world to behave like a novel.
Laza LazarevićShort storyeBookZona Zamfirova
Zona Zamfirova — Stevan Sremac. A song escapes from a silversmith's apprentice, a slap interrupts it, and the story has already begun to circulate. In Zona Zamfirova, very little belongs only to the people immediately concerned. A glance becomes a report, a family argument becomes public entertainment, and a young woman's reputation can be remade by neighbours who have seen nothing at all.
Stevan SremacNoveleBook · Audiobook