Peter Owen World: Serbia

Young Albert Weiss was spared the horrors of Auschwitz when his parents threw him and his brother from the transport train. Years later, with the help of other survivors of the holocaust, he explores the myriad ways of confronting not just the evil that robbed him of his childhood, but the guilt he feels for having lost his brother on that wintry night. Mosaic, non-linear and semi-autobiographical, this book is reminiscent in style of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and in theme of the works of Primo Levi. In documenting the stories of child survivors, it is a moving and necessary addition to the literature of the Holocaust.

Count Otto von Hausburg and his devoted servant are sent to Belgrade by the Austrian monarchy to investigate troubling reports of vampires. There they find a deeply frightened populace who are willing to believe the Count is the devil incarnate. Perhaps they are right. Novakovic brilliantly captures the atmosphere of the Balkans in the 18th century and offers up a playful twist on the Gothic imagination.