Dictionary of the Khazars

Milorad Pavić
cover of the book: Dictionary of the Khazars
cover of the book: Dictionary of the Khazars

Dictionary of the Khazars is the imaginary book of knowledge of the Khazars, a people who flourished somewhere beyond Transylvania between the seventh and ninth centuries. Eschewing conventional narrative and plot, this lexicon novel combines the dictionaries of the world's three major religions with entries that leap between past and future, featuring three unruly wise men, a book printed in poison ink, suicide by mirrors, a chimerical princess, a sect of priests who can infiltrate one's dreams, romances between the living and the dead, and much more. There are two versions of this book, male and female, which are identical save for seventeen crucial lines.