The Inner Side of the Wind. A Novel about Hero and Leander

Milorad Pavić is a prominent Serbian writer, in whose works magical realism intertwines with hypertextuality, allowing the reader to determine the plot of the novel and influence the story. "The Inner Side of the Wind" resembles a water clock (clepsydra) in its form. This is a flip book that can be started from either end. Hero and Leander are separated by centuries, but they feel or, rather, sense each other through the ages. Between them, through the fabric of time, thin threads stretch that the reader can try to find and connect together. Leander lives during the time of Turkish invasions. To learn his fate, he consults soothsayers who predict two deaths for him: by saber and by fire. These prophecies are the inner and outer sides of the wind… Hero knows that she will die at 12:05. Meanwhile, she teaches French to two children, one of whom lives in the future and is invisible in the present, and translates novels, inserting her own stories into them…