Danilo Kiš

Fourteenth Day

The topic of this routine, romantic drama is a little unusual - it concerns what some prisoners do when they are allowed out of jail for two weeks before their sentences are up. Rather than receiving some special dispensation, it turns out that in Yugoslavia this was the custom. Most of the time, the men here are engaged in pursuits that forward their relationships with the fairer sex, as might be expected after a long and lonely incarceration. There is nothing particularly profound about their two weeks of liberty, and no deep message in the tale.