"The Coming" by Andrej Nikolaidis (2012) Project 196 Montenegro

                                                                Montenegro

I am attempting to post on a short story from each of the currently recognized 196 counties of the world.  I am giving myself 196 weeks to complete what I like to call "Project 196".  Today, reading a story in Best European Fiction 2012, I will be featuring an intriguing short story, "The Coming",  by an author from Montenegro, Andrej Nikolaidis.  

The story is told by a private detective.  Like most such characters, he has seen it all and has little for

the human animal.  As the story opens he is viewing a bloody crime scene.  He tells us that the majority

of his cases are women checking on cheating husbands or vice versa.  He says all you really need

do is listen to what the client suspects and then come back confirming their suspicions.  His remarks 

would be right in place in a noir genre Hollywood film of the early 1940s.  

About one third way into the story, the narrator goes into an extended rant against the people of

Sarajevo to whom he applies an incredible list of very negative characteristics.  Basically he sees 

them as near inhuman brutes who have destroyed a once beautiful country.

I enjoyed reading this story.

Andrej Nikolaidis was born in 1974 in Sarajevo, to a mixed Montenegrin-Greek family. Until the age of six, he lived in the city of Ulcinj, where he returned in 1992 after the war in Bosnia erupted. Since 1994, he has written for regional independent and liberal media, as well as for cultural magazines. He is considered by many to be one of the most influential intellectuals of the younger generation in the region, known for his anti-war activism and for his promotion of the rights of minorities.
Nikolaidis also publicly defended the victims of police torture, which resulted in his receiving many threats, including a death threat during a live radio appearance. 

He has worked as a columnist in the weekly magazine Monitor and for publications including Vijesti (Montenegro), Dnevnik (Slovenia), Slobodna Bosna (Bosnia-Herzegovina), E-novine (Serbia), and Koha Ditore (Kosovo). Since 2010, he has been employed as an advisor for culture and free society in the parliament of Montenegro.

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