Books By Aleksandar Tisma, Michael Henry Heim - Author

Aleksandar Tišma (1924-2003) was born in the Vojvodina,  a former province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that had been incorporated into the new kingdom of Yugoslavia after the First World War. His father, a Serb, came from a peasant background; his mother was middle-class and Jewish. The family lived comfortably, and Tišma received a good education. In 1941, Hungary annexed Vojvodina; the next year-Tišma's last in high school-the regime carried out a series of murderous pogroms, killing some 3,000 inhabitants, primarily Serbs and Jews, though the Tišmas were spared. After fighting for the Yugoslav partisans, Tišma studied philosophy at the University of Belgrade and went into journalism. In 1949 he joined the editorial staff of a publishing house, where he remained until his retirement in 1980. Tišma published his first story, "Ibika's House," in 1951; it was followed by the novels Guilt and In Search of the Dark Girl and a collection of