First edition issued on October 1988.
The 28th legal edition in sale

ABOUT THE BOOK

     PUBLIC BIRD is the first credible erotic novel written by a female writer in the history of our literature.
     Simultaneously it is a story about a loneliness of a young lady, her continuous and never accomplished strong desire towards finding true closeness and compatible soul connection. It is the longing for a true meaningful communication.
     A longing for an exchange of thoughts and emotions, and not only simple words. Freedom instead of submissiveness. Longing for the true meaning to life in the world of stereotypes and emptiness.
     It is a novel about the relationships between children and parents. About the truths that people understand when they are children and tend to forget when they become parents. It is then that is most needed.
     PUBLIC BIRD is also a voice of female rebellion. A demand for a proper treatment of the sexes and relationships between them.
The erotic scenes in this thrilling saga are about growing up, maturity, loneliness and the loss of illusions. Loneliness is most bitter, difficult and most crushing for those who physically are not alone.
     PUBLIC BIRD is a novel that every young lady should read who enters the first life intersection. It is a book from which to learn why the only real flight is with own  wings.

PREVIOUS EDITIONS

KNJIZEVNE NOVINE 1988.	NARODNA KNJIGA 1996.	GLOBOSINO ALEKSANDRIJA 2003.

REVIEWS – ABSTRACTS

      The first credible female erotic novel written by female's hand in the history of our literature.

                                                                                                         (Dragosh Kalajic)

      Its protagonist wants to behave as easy giving bitch, but in truth, she is only suffering for hers first lost love.

(Igor Mandic)

      Seductiveness of a  storytelling, authentic speech of a generation make the book as arelevant voice of rebellion and demands for change in relations between the sexes, for better communication and ultimately for the authentic experience of the world.

                                                                                                          (Nada Popovic Perishic)

      There is no true literature without a certain dose of enigmatic, and just some puzzle that this book sets to its readers, surrounded by an aura that was at the moment of its appearance merely supposed, offers the highest literary pleasures to the people who are questioned over the life, and to those who are looking  for the answers in a genuine literature.

                                                                                                          (Predrag Stanojevic)

      This is a moving saga of an alienation, loneliness and absurdity .. the heiress of  Isidora Wing, Erica Young's character and antecedent of Vargas Ljosa`s heroine in the novel “Adventures of a noty girl”, characterized as a “yellow new age novel”, Sloboda is writing a manifesto of today's lost generation, in a discerning way, which is exhausted in a variety of pointless ways to escape from the loneliness.

(Neda Todorovic)

QUOTE FROM THE BOOK

     Nothing, absolutely nothing sugests an event. Desa is standing in the middle of the room  rested upon the table and talking constantly over and over again about the same things (like Grada at meetings - same attitude and stile). I am doing my make up not listening to her very much. Everything there is to say I know by heart. My painting of make up, a minimal mini skirt, infinite telephone conversations, arrogance, low school marks, losing time on stupid things, smoking, lack of interest in something meaningful… The list is really remarkable, but repeated a million times. And then Desa came up with something new (the moment of inspiration, I guess!):
     -  “And what do you think you are doing – changing boyfriends as if they were dresses?!”
     -  “ As the sanitary pads, mum. Every month a dozen”.
     Desa is blushing, taking a breath to say something, she can’t manage to, then waving her head in weakness. Something like a kind of compassion rouses in me. And hope: maybe Desa isn’t bothering me just to look like she is doing something useful. (Bringing a child up, a child as naughty as I am is a huge and hard work!) Maybe she is just trying to be like one of those modern ‘mammitas’ following the instructions given by psychologists in women’s magazines. (Desa’s favourite reading), to understand the puberty crises and dilemmas, to speak with me. I mostly stay silent to all of her efforts, and usually don’t even reckon with her, so that everything that is left to Desa is to declaim her protest. To free my young soul from sin (only because of that?) I’m giving Desa a chance:
     -   ”Mum, but those boys don’t deserve different. They don’t even ask for more. They don’t really care about me – it’s only the matter of prestige just to say they were with me. There’s nothing in them – they are so hollow they even clang. And they are all the same, so hopelessly same, so I don’t even notice that I’m changing them. I despise them, but I can’t do without them; I can’t be alone.”
     Desa stares - nothing to guess. Perhaps this case has not yet been dealt with in the "You and your child? Or do not recognize this?  Not to entangle her even more into the unknown, I do correct myself  (definitely giving up from trying to improve a one parent into the mother):
     -   “After all, Deska,  what do you want? To fall in love with some lob lolly and hanged him around the neck? Well, you can generally imagine playlist in which I would act a reincarnation of a beautiful and gentle Romeo's  Giulietta?  And why would I, oh,  man?  Shakespeare is dead and no one else is worthy to write about me!” I do gibberish, but while I am taking on a dress, I would like to cry. I need awfully to cry.  A crying moron!
     -  “Why do you tight up so much a belt – it will suffocate  you! And why do you lift up so much your apron - you can see your buttocks! Should a big senior  look like that? Apparently, Desa has  pull together. Again, she is in the form. A standard one.
     -  “ Hi, Mom!” I kiss her in a hurry,  just not to suffer for lack of tenderness and talk  tomorrow about my insensitivity to parents who worry about me, love me,  live for me and have just me in the whole world.
     I am going to the school, although this time I feel this completely unnecessary, superfluous effort, time spent there is lost. Because I do not teach at all. It hates me. And I do not really have to. Grada is a big shut in his company, an important “comrade” in his Party and God in our small town. So, who is to bring down his only niece! Over the year they give me bad grades, they threaten me, but in June they welcome "comrade Grada" and I switch to the next year od studying. Stupid, dull game. No one needed. Anything useful. No suspense. Without fans. Because we all know the beginning, and the course, and the end of such a miserable, futile rigging.
     No, really nothing suggests an event.
     Fifth and sixth class in the school  - Serbo-Croatian language and literature. The written assignment. Glorious professor gave us again one of his favorite titles: The future is waiting for me! Moldy one. Cemetery of dinosaurs. Soc-realizm of seventies. Expert and fan of the topics for bluffing. I see, students are writing broadly. Phrase over the phrase, phrase over the phrase. Flying over some remote mountains (as educators or healers) and other heights. With a small letters making a  big picture. They claim, and I know by heart (once a year getting necessarily the same topic), that inevitably a new pages in the history of science and art start with their names.  Nobody to say what they really thought, what they will really be: Instead, they will try, with a little help of a father, best man or friend  of a mother in law,  to put their ass to a convenient, not demanding a lot of thinking and certainly, not a  hard working, position. All the energy they will focus on making children and weekend cottages. Their ambitions will be reduced to: buying a car, entry of FC “Napredak” into a  first division and once in a year “best regards from the blue Adriatic see”
     Professor is walking between the benches and I feel, shoot on me by his eyes. It's obvious, blank paper in front of me annoys him. Because of my compassion to his ulcer, I begin to write and give  him a pearl: “I think that the future does not wait for me and it will be the same, invariably the same, if I do nothing for its survival. Because I can not do anything. A future that I am awaiting  shall bring me, I believe, an ordinary life - the daily duties and common pleasures. (From these banks there's  no escape for me.) The only thing I ask is: no bluffing, no fixing!”
     Do not throw the pearls before swine - folk proverb teaches us. I will receive the usual bad mark,  with usual comment: faint heartedly! Muddy thoughts!  Where is that youthful enthusiasm and belief in a better tomorrow? Child, what you go into the life with?
     Really: with what?
     I do hand over my notebook and go out. I do not wait for Maria. She will write two hours,  I'm sure.  Only she, in this cage,  really believes that she has a wings. Others believe too. And than,  jointly, we all wait  for the day when she will conquer the capital city and further environment (the closer  includes everything within the borders of Yugoslavia).
     Maria and my friendship is eternal mystery for our teachers. They try, torture and struggle, but no way to figure out  what a briliant mind is doing with me. Even our class master , the Balkan  Lavoisier in shimmy shoes, Maria's beloved and favorite, suggested to Maria's parents  to influence her to stop socializing with me. That I would not  spoil her.
     Maria is, like, fall in love to our professor of Mathematic, and she particularly stands out that. In all hers poems, she crams his name, she always  finds some occasional verse and obscure place for him, a small one  but safe. She place him in a nest so that  the poem without him is being poor, and no editor of school newspaper can not throw him out. And all of them are get used to it. "It's a Love" - they say. And they smile. Favorably and a bit overwhelming. Somehow,  Maria seems to  be closer to them. And more deare. She gives them an opportunity to pretend how breadth and generous they are. Okay, even to Maria there is something to forgive. And they forgive,  because they are full of understanding. And, in fact, they do figure out nothing. There is no way, no such an alchemy that professor, as he is, can  be a Maria's  love. It was Maria's defense from the  flock of minus epsilons (division taken from Mr. Haxly). And Maria's rebellion as well.
     I'm not Maria's rebellion. Neither I would agree to that role (Maria means to much to me). Maria wrote  in the "Scrapbook" of mine: “ People are neither black nor white. We're all kind of gray: metallic gray, dove gray or shades of purple, anyway. Each in its own way, but gray”.
     Only with  Maria I do not feel myself superior because of my  beauty. Because, only she does not envy me. Others, clean confection clothing models, can not forgive me for not being tailored according to their track and style. The borders must be known and respected. All what is sticking out should be trimmed out.  As a living fence. As the grass. Not to disturb. Not to awake others  complexes and unfulfilled  wishes. (Basics of thinking and spiritual actions of the province.)
     Still nothing to suggests an event.
     I'm going down the street, they are turning around. Sparse gallery of glances: Male's are seductive,  Female's are toxic. They are smiling and whispering behind  me. Snake's  tongues are licking me. To intoxicate, to murder. That  petty malice, the poorly concealed concupiscence ,  give me the right to excellency. It make me what  I am: unique in a pileup of serial products.
     Buda's life's work.
     Buda was not born in time to become a communists youth supporter. True, he could later join the advanced youth and move into a new work and life victories, but he preferred to breed pigeons and writing poems. Cluster of pigeons he borrowed to the youth organization for their performance "Greetings to the Peace" at some celebration or rally, I do not know exactly. Just before that event, someone's attention has abated and cats ate the pigeons. So,  the Buda was included among those who have sacrificed other people's lives for the glory of the revolution.
     Neither with the poetry he become famous.  He wrote insipidly, how the comrades assessed,  provincially luscious and bourgeoisie blurred.
     - Love among the stars, a man - a grain of cosmic dust, sense and nonsense! And who, I ask you, would not be interested in? Give us a revolutionary fervor, enthusiasm and outstanding works,  brotherhood and unity! That's what we need ! So, what's that mean: who we are and where are we going? What kind of an enemy dilemma is that? Our way is poorly drawn down! We have only one way! You know, if you're not a brother of comrade Grada ...
     So the Buda gave up of writing a poetry, he  married Desa and became bookkeeper.
     For the entire life, he was a  "brother of comrade Grada”. Entire life: accountants. Debit – credit. Receivables and payments. Debit – credit. Without me, his life balance  would be negative, forever.
     Nothing, just nothing to suggest an event.
     I do walk slowly, generously exhibit a masterpiece of nature. An exhibit protected by the alarm system of its own unavailability. Right back, chest forward, occasionally I throw back my hair with sudden jerk of the head. Left and right I share the glances in the style: Enjoy while you can, you, sentenced only to watch. The beauty is in your town not for a long!
     I enter the coffe shop "Kod Vlade" and sit at usual place – next to the window, back to the wall, face turned toward the door - location from which I see all that enter. And they all see me.
     Cale brings me minced corn with ice-cream.
     I light up a cigarette and wait others to gather.
Some guy approaches the table and sits down slowly. Unknown. I was stroked! Knocked down completely.  Approach me in such a way! What is he imagining?
     I observe him quickly: dark. In black. Slimy. Limestone face. The huge black eyes. (Modigliani's  image in three dimensions.) Not bad for a start.
     I sort out my face character: I haven't perceived you boy, you are an air. I decide to be silent. To see how is he going to start. What kind of the monologue he has prepared for this entrance exam. The Commission is ready. The candidate can begin: steady, ready, go now!
     Dummy bullet!
     He is silent too. He looks at me. Peacefully examines my face, part by part. It seems to me that he takes out each particular part and analyze it. He dives into  my view. Persistently. Long. I feel it as a physical touch, and as the pressure. Then as a heavy animal laying  upon my breast. I put my view down. (Destroyed arsenal labeled "Poisons and the antidote for every occasion.) I am becoming powerless. As a rabbit in front of the python. Like a shavings of iron in front of  a magnet.
     - What's your name?
Determined to remain quiet, I answer. (even a word is not possible to hide of such a view.)
     - Sloboda (Freedom). Grada has came up with that name, of course.
- Sloboda (Fridom) robed.
     I was stripped  in a flash. With no warning. I was slightly shivering.
     I was upset and dazed with that simple, and perfect articulation of what  I have never managed to give a name, to set up, but  felt it continually, inseparably.
     - Sloboda (Fridom) robed. It is a pity. A man can even fly up, only if he wants it. Want to try together?
     Unrest grows. It is the fear already. To defend, I stummer:
     - I have a boyfriend.
     Coward defense..
     - Then left him. In fact, there is no need - but you have left him already. He pronounces that seriously and confidently. The pressure of his view eases up. Slowly, I separate my eyes of the red & white tablecloth dice.
     - Who are you?
     - Galeb. (Seagull)
     - Aren't Seagulls white?
     - Their feather is white. We watch it. We see no Gull. A bird is not its feathers. Neither the voice of singing. Neither the cage in which the bird is detained. Neither the nest it makes. Birds – it is their  wings and their flight.
     He smiles. Nicely.
     - And, what do you want?
     -  To fly away from these inordinately continental regions as soon as possible.
     - What you want from me?
     - I want nothing from you. But I want you to learn to fly. At least as Icarus,  until you become a bird.
     In front of my house he slowly pulls out a wilted leaf entangled in my hair, and whispers:
     - When you come in, open all the windows. Roll up the shutters. To feel how beautiful is outside. To feel the pain of the night.