THE SHORT STORY ”THE GUEST” BY DRAGOSLAV MIHAILOVIĆ AND ALBERT CAMUS

Abstract

This paper examined the short story “Gost” (“The Guest”) from the first book by Dragoslav Mihailović, Frede, laku noć (1967). The story was written as a variation on the short story of the same title by Albert Camus from the collection Exile and the Kingdom (1957). Mihailović’s “Gost” appeared in several versions, the first of which was published in 1959 in the Letopis Matice srpske; in our interpretation, we also have traced the differences between them. By comparing it with Camus’s original, we demonstrated that Dragoslav Mihailović’s early prose is deeply interwoven with modernist currents – particularly with contemporary European literature and culture – while also anticipating certain aspects of postmodernism.