Seven Touches of Music: A Mosaic Novel

This experimental mosaic novel by a Serbian authorwho is often compared to such luminaries as Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, and Jorge Luis Borgesconsists of seven wispily-connected stories about unexpected encounters with music. A teacher of autistic students, a librarian, the purchaser of a music box, an elderly woman at a train station, a scientist-turned-painter, a dying professor, and a violin-maker's apprentice seem deceptively ordinary until sudden shifts in time or place thrust them into a realm where all the conventional ways of appreciating music seem not to apply.

A truly unique author whose speculative work bends trusted concepts in a seductively ordinary manner, Zoran }ivkovic has been variously compared to such luminaries as Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, and Stanislew Lem. His work has been broadcast on BBC radio, produced by Belgrade Studio B television, and published in eleven countries; by the end of 2006 six more countries will have joined that list. He has been nominated for several awards and received the World Fantasy Award in 2003 for his mosaic novel 'The Library'.The publication of 'Seven Touches of Music' by Aio Publishing marks the first time the book will be available in the United States and Canada, an event hailed by fans of the author. 'Steps Through the Mist' and 'Impossible Encounters' are slated to follow in 2007 and 2008.The author was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, in 1948. In 1973 he graduated from the Department of General Literature with the theory of literature, Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade; he received his master's degree in 1979 and his doctorate in 1982 from the same school.