Lazar Komarčić

Lazar Komarčić (Serbian Cyrillic: Лазар Комарчић; 9 January 1839 – 9 January 1909) was a Serbian pioneering science fiction writer who has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. He was a novelist and playwright and was best known for his profound influence on what was to become later the literary genres of science fiction and crime novels. He was the most widely read author during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, according to literary critic Jovan Skerlić. Science fiction and crime novel-writing at the beginning of the 20th century was not considered a literary pursuit, and as time passed he was forgotten until the 1970s when his works were revived. He was a contemporary of Jules Verne, Camille Flammarion, and H. G. Wells.