A major literary work of our century, A Time of Death is a colossal novel in the best classical tradition of Dostoyevsky and Thomas Mann. It is the story of the survival of the Serbian people in one of the most tragic periods of their history—the First World War….

Set in the midst of this senseless destruction and rage, when death was so common that it went almost unnoticed, Dobrica Ćosić's masterful plot rises to the grandeur of his people's dignity and aspirations. With great compassion and humanistic perception, Ćosić portrays the soul-searching anguish of Vukašin Katić, leader of the Serbian Parliamentary Opposition, who must see his only son, Ivan, sent to the battlefield. Katić queries whether liberty and independence are worth the ultimate sacrifice of the country's young.

Njegoš M. Petrović, "Fiction: 'A Time of Death'," in Best Sellers (copyright © 1978 Helen Dwight Reid Educational...