Written between 1980 and 1986, the six stories that constitute The Lute and the Scars (as well as an untitled piece by the author, included here as A and B ) were transcribed from the manuscripts left by Danilo Ki following his death in 1989. Like the title story, many of these texts are autobiographical. Others resurrect protagonists belonging to Ki s fellow Central European novelists, allowing readers to identify, perhaps, depending on the level of obfuscation, fantasy, and historical accuracy, figures dreamed up by d n von Horv th and Endre Ady ( The Stateless ), by the Yugoslavian Nobel laureate Ivo Andri ( Debt ), and by Piotr Rawicz.

Against a background of oppressive regimes and political exile, readers will find that the never-ending debate between death and writing continues unabated in these stories death as allegory or as a voluntary symbolic act, and writing as the one impregnable defense, writing as the only possible means of survival.