The Guardian calls Danilo Kis a master storyteller

The London-based daily The Guardian has published a text in its column on culture inviting readers to read the collection of stories The Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Kis.

- I suppose there may have been a joke in the back of Danilo Kis’s mind when he gave this, his final collection of stories, such a title, seeing that the book as a whole runs to a mere 166 pages, and the title story is only 24 pages long - book critic Nicholas Lezard wrote, pointing out it was "one of the most moving stories he has ever read."

- It is a testament to both the power and the weakness of literature and human memory; it’s both an elegy and a howl of impotence, resonating in more dimensions than the two of the printed page - Lezard says, pointing out "The only condition for inclusion in The Encyclopedia of the Dead is that no one whose name is included here may appear in any other encyclopedia.”

- It is a profoundly democratic undertaking; and only someone who was of a thoroughly democratic spirit, someone who could recognise, and not only in theory or abstract, the importance of every single individual, could have thought of it - Lezard underlines.

In his opinion, its egalitarianism is such that those who have already made their mark on history, or think they have, have no need to be included.

As Lezard explains, this might shed light on how Kis felt about history, and what the people who made history thought of him.

Lezard also congratulates to the publishing company Penguin for bringing Kis and his collection of stories back to the readers in the UK.

Although he owed much to Jorge Luis Borges, there’s something warmer about Kis, something that for all its intelligence knows more the pain of being human. He is one of those writers you feel is on your side, Lezard stresses.

- Kis was one of the greats of the century, not just an original mind but a compassionate one, too, and capable, as he is with this collection, of reinventing and invigorating the short story. In short, I cannot recommend this book highly enough, or urge it on you more strongly - Lezard concludes.