The novel “Arzamas” by Serbian writer Ivana Dimic is a bizarre fusion of drama and prose, tragedy and comedy, fiction and reality. The theme of the novel is the relationship between mother and daughter, old mother and aging daughter, one of the most important existential themes. Mom is “strange”, but it’s not Mom’s fault. Fear of death, “Arzamas horror” by Leo Tolstoy, happiness of premonition, bitterness of love, laughter and tears. The reader is presented with a gallery of characters inhabiting modern Belgrade - doctors, lawyers, a plumber, a postman - and characters who occupy the daughter's thoughts - Chekhov, Russell, Wittgenstein, Goya, Heidegger. And Emily Dickinson, the poet whose life and death remain a mystery. Ivana Dimic is the winner of the 2016 NIN (Belgrade) weekly award for the best novel of the year written in Serbian.