Svetislav Basara is a major figure of contemporary Serbian literature and the author of five collections of short stories, thirteen novels, a dozen books of essays, plays, and novellas. In 2006 Basara received the NIN Award for his novel The Rise and Fall of Parkinson’s Disease. His 1985 novel, Chinese Letter, is also available in English translation. Basara served as the Serbian Ambassador to Cyprus from 2001 to 2005.

The Cyclist Conspiracy tells the tale of a secret Brotherhood who meet in dreams, gain esoteric knowledge from contemplation of the bicycle, and seek to move in and out of history, manipulating events; the Brothers are part of a conspiracy so vast and so secret that, in many cases, the conspirators themselves are unaware of their participation in it. Told through a series of “historical documents”—memoirs, illustrations, letters, philosophical treatises, blue prints, and maps—the novel details the story of these interventions and the historical moments where the Brotherhood has made their influence felt, from the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to a lost story of Sherlock Holmes.

Masterfully intertwining the threads of waking and dreams into the fabric of the present, the past, and the future, Svetislav Basara’s Pynchon-esque The Cyclist Conspiracy is a bold, funny, and imaginative romp.