Searing, visceral stuff - the story of betrayal upon betrayal, and of how a nation was ground into dust and doggedly refused to stay there. The Serbian retreat across the winter mountains, under pressure from three separate war fronts and abandoned by those they believed were their allies, is a tragic and epic one. Here are some of the very deepest roots of the history of the embattled Balkans. A must-read.

EXCELLENT! This book was written perfectly to the letter. It is a combination of four of his earlier masterpieces put together. I do not suggest buying this book if you don't like perfectly written books. There is not enough time or words to describe this masterpiece.

After having read the very only comment on your site regarding 'A Time of Death', in which a reader complained about the translation, and also expressed difficulty to understand what was going on, I decided to write a little comment in order to encourage people to go ahead and read Cosic's work. What you must bear in mind, though, is that Dobrica Cosic has been writing all his life one continuous story, one novel. Although it is not impossible to read any one of them singled out, or read them in any order, and get some reading pleasure, I should think it is best to read them in the correct order so that you can follow the characters and their life in a chronological order. I cannot be of a lot of help with titles in English, since I read Cosic in the original language, , but I can tell you that it is best to start with 'A Time of Death', continue with 'Reach to eternity', and finish with 'South to destiny', which would be the end of reading about the Serbian tragedy in the period of the WWI. Then Cosic continues with another irresistable trilogy called in original 'A Time of Evil' (Vreme Zla), but I am not sure of its English title in translation, which follows the same characters through the period in between the WWI and WWII. The latest published book from the same story stream iz the first book from the forthcoming trilogy called 'Vreme Vlasti' (literally translated 'A Time of Reign'), which is the one I am after at the moment. The amount of reading seems overwhelming, but don't be put off. I remember reading one of the books with 500 pages in one night, and kicking myself the following morning for spoiling the pleasure of reading it for longer period of time. As a writer, Cosic is realistic, he can be cruel, he can also be helplessly romantic, he can make you laugh and cry because you always end up falling in love with at least one of his characters. I met a young man once who told that he thought of naming his future daughter after one of 'A Time of Death' female characters, which I thought was very funny, since I was already convinced by then, I was going to name one of my future sons after one of the male characters from the same novel. You don't easily forget those lives and the meaning of their universal love, hate, pleasure and pain. Cosic is also very well historically informed, and I cannot think of an easier way to learn about history of that time. I hope you enjoy the reading, and when you meet Bogdan, tell him I still think of him sometime.