Knjiga žalbi

Unlike many of Kapor's urban and romantic novels, The Book of Complaints has a more pronounced social and intellectual dimension. The main character is a bookseller by profession, a man who believes in books, art and culture as fundamental life values. However, due to conflicts with the political structures and bureaucratic mechanisms of the society of the time, he is forced to abandon his previous life and goes to New York, where he begins working in the first Yugoslav bookstore in that city.

His stay in America does not bring him the expected liberation. Instead of the promised world of possibilities, he encounters new forms of loneliness, alienation and the struggle for survival. Through his daily work in the bookstore, he meets emigrants, artists, political refugees and people who are trying to build a new life, but are still haunted by memories of their homeland. These encounters shape a layered picture of emigrant life and a sense of not belonging.

The novel stands out for its reflections on the role of art in a world increasingly dominated by money, power and interests. Kapor particularly develops the motifs of collecting, literature and painting, raising the question of whether beauty can truly change a person or is it just a passing illusion. The character of Šlomović, a tragic art collector, appears in the background, whose fate opens up the themes of the relationship between art, property and human greed.

The Book of Complaints is not just a story about one man but also a novel about a generation of intellectuals torn between ideals and reality, between homeland and the world, between art and everyday survival. Due to its rich gallery of characters, autobiographical elements and reflections on culture, it is considered one of Kapor's more serious and content-wise most ambitious novels.