One night, somewhere between the times, a Moroccan taxi driver hands a strange letter to the imperial Roman Minister of Education,
José Alkorta. It reads: "In this year of grace our emperor Bonifacio will fall ill. Although old and evil, he will survive.
Such is the will of Lilith. Three young men from three corners of the earth have set out for Rome, to cure the emperor. Not
one knows his assignment." The letter is undersigned with undecipherable hieroglyphics.
The Minister is consternated. What does the message mean? The new university is about to open its doors. Will the three men
be among the prospective students? Alkorta - who in reality is not Roman, but who has emigrated anonymously from Galatia -
decides upon appropriate surveillance measures. As a result, one of the chosen, Arnoldo, languishes in the dungeons of the
state police, while the second, Danilo, is called up for military service. The identity of the third man, chosen to heal the
emperor, remains obscure.
This "exposition" is the overture to the novel "Emperor of the Galatians", the literary debut of the Serb Mihajlo Kazic, a
qualified engineer and a university lecturer living in Stuttgart. The bare outline of the introductory chapter can offer however
only a mere hint of the richness of events and characters, which the author virtually unites in a labyrinth of world history.
Kazic relates more than a dozen parallel and at the same time contrapuntal stories. He masterfully shifts the planes of time,
from the classical antiquity to the present day. Danilo's life path crosses that of Arnoldo. A tender romance hopes for fulfilment;
the threads of a planned conspiracy converge in a brothel. On the streets bloody terror reigns, and estranged ministers plot
their intrigues in the emperor's palace.
The colourful kaleidoscope of the plot, which according to the prologue, "is dreamt in Hebrew and transcribed in the language
of the Galatians", unwinds in short sequences in keeping with to the fascinating style of the development of events. Kazic
alternates between realistically portrayed episodes and a surrealistically extreme vision, between philosophical essay and
rhapsodic verse. Occidental story-telling tradition unites intimately with Oriental fairy tale poetry. The ancient biblical
myth of Adam's first wife, Lilith, is resolved into the elements of a modern spy thriller.
A novel? It is an allegory full of wisdom and grief over the never-ending struggle for power, and its victims. For, while
the Galatians of Asia Minor stand for peace and tolerance, Ancient Rome, which ruled the world at a turning point in history,
is a symbol of those totalitarian systems that still mock human dignity and tolerance.
The readers way out of the books enchanted labyrinth becomes easier from page to page. Kazic ends his book with a hopeful
epilogue:
"The winter is past,
The rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing has come.
The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land."
