Fairground Magician

Jelena Lengold is a storyteller, novelist and a poet. She has published six books of poetry, one novel (Baltimore, 2003, 2011) and four books of stories, including Pokisli lavovi (Rain-soaked Lions, 1994), Lift (1999) and Vasarski madionicar (The Fairground Magician, 2008, 2009). The latter collection won her the European Union Prize for Literature, 2011. She has been represented in several anthologies of poetry and stories, and her works have been translated into several languages. Lengold worked as a journalist and an editor for ten years in the cultural department of Radio Belgrade and subsequently worked as a project coordinator in the Conflict Management programme of Nansenskolen Humanistic Academy in Lillehammer, Norway. She now lives in Belgrade, where she works as a freelance journalist and writer.

"Fairground Magician is a wonderful collection of short stories. Sensuous, charming, witty and urbane, Jelena Lengold's stories of complex relationships and passions are both highly literary and highly readable. This collection has already won a number of European prizes: it deserves to be discovered and treasured by the British readers." Vesna Goldsworthy, author of Chernobyl Strawberries and Inventing Ruritania "Fairground Magician is a collection of thirteen tales revolving around the various faces of the Gods of love, whether this is Eros, who represents love, sexual passion and naughty thoughts or Yue-Lao, who binds two people together with an invisible red string - it doesn't matter, they will find themselves reflected within this book's pages." Review - Gary Moon, Parrish Lantern "Fairground Magician' is a collection of short stories showcasing a breadth of imagination and skill. Like a painter utilising different techniques to create individual artworks, Lengold employs a variety of approaches in her stories which truly feel like brushstrokes on canvas." Andjelka Grubisic BRITIC online magazine