Bulatović began in 1956 with a book of short stories,
Djavoli dolaze ("The Devils Are Coming", translated as
Stop the Danube), for which he received the Serbian Writers Union Award. His novel
The Red Rooster Flies Heavenwards, set in his homeland of northeastern
Montenegro, was translated into more than twenty foreign languages. He then stopped publishing for a time, to protest against state interference in his work. His next novel,
Hero on a Donkey, "A dark hot nightmare of a war novel...", was first published abroad and only four years later (1967) in Yugoslavia. Common themes in his works are demons, evil, the grotesque, and black humor. In 1975, Bulatović won the
NIN Award for novel of the year for
People with Four Fingers, an insight into the émigré's life.
The Fifth Finger was a sequel to that book. His last novel was
Gullo Gullo, which brought together various themes from his previous books. A library in
Rakovica is named after him. Bulatović was known "for his fierce
Serbian nationalism, which earned him the enmity of other ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, and he was an official of
Serbia's Socialist Party." His candidature for the President of the
Association of Writers of Yugoslavia in 1986 was rejected by Slovenian, Kosovan, Montenegrin and Croatian branches of the Association contributing to the subsequent dissolution of the Association in 1989. ==Works==