The Apology and the Last Days — Borislav Pekic

Originally published in 1975, The Apology and the Last Days is the final volume in a trilogy of novels -- also including The Rise and Fall of Icarus Gubelkian and How to Quiet a Vampire -- about the aftermath of World War II, by Borislav Pekić, one of the former Yugoslavia's most important postwar writers. The narrator tells his story from prison, where he is serving time for the murder of a former Nazi official. As the novel unfolds, we learn that the victim was the same person whom the narrator, while a lifeguard during the war, saved from drowning, thus making him vulnerable to charges of collaboration. In this tragicomic tale, Pekic´ explores eternal questions of fate and individual responsibility.