FINIS AFRICAE : Imaginarna Afrika Vladimira Stojšina

The paper thematizes the role of the topos of imaginary Africa in the novel Cinema in a Matchbox (Bioskop u kutiji šibica) by Vladimir Stojšin. The motif of Africa is present in literary works for children of socialist Yugoslavia, but the role of imaginary Africa in Stojšin’s work does not fit into the themes of “socialist exoticism”, primarily due to the absence of an ideological component. On the other hand, Stojšin’s Africa is not a suitable topic for contemporary imagology. The paper, using a minimal imagological conceptual apparatus as a means of interpretation, attempts to define the specifics of the use of this motif in the aforementioned work, both in terms of content and form, since the entire composition of the novel is determined by the delays resulting from the postponement of the journey to “Africa”, which at the end of it all experiences an inglorious finis.