Reading for lockdown days: "Mr. President" and other bedtime books

"In an unnamed country, an egomaniac dictator plots to rein in political opponents and maintain a firm grip on power. As tyranny takes hold, everyone is forced to choose between compromise and death... This masterpiece by Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias, imbued with rich lyricism, Mayan symbolism, and the Guatemalan vernacular, is at once a scathing satire of totalitarianism, an all-encompassing portrait of psychological terror, and a surrealist a masterpiece that was banned for many years".

This is how the masterpiece of the Nobel laureate Miguel Angel Asturias is briefly described on the website of the publishing company "Laguna".

Blockades and other protests

Considering the time of rebellion we are living in, the student and civil protests, the blockade of the faculty and RTS, the obvious lack of democracy and the excess of tyranny in Serbia, the divisions in society and the narrowing of ranks at the top of the government, the "Laguna" edition "Freedom begins between the covers" already seems inspiring at first glance. It's as if someone stacked the books in relation to the Serbian reality. And maybe it is.

There are the classics "Process", "Crime and Punishment", "Poor People", "Hard Times", then "Freedom of Speech" by Vladan Matijević, "Freedom to the People!" Terry Pratchett, Louise Swanson's "The End of the Story", or Elif Shafak's "Keeping Your Sanity in an Age of Division" which "Laguna" describes as follows:

"We live in an age of anxiety, pressed by the events around us. We are oppressed by injustice, suffering, constant crisis. How can we preserve hope and faith in a better tomorrow in the midst of all this? And how can we preserve common sense in an age of increasingly fierce divisions?

In this powerful call for conscious optimism, writer and activist Elif Shafak reflects on our age of pessimism, where emotions lead and seduce politics, and misinformation and fear are the norm. Elif Shafak delves into her own memories and explores the power of stories to reveal to us that literature can foster democracy, tolerance and progress. In addition, it reminds us that only when we carefully listen to each other, mutual empathy becomes stronger, and our faith in a better and wiser future stronger".

Back to the roots

Serbian reality permeates each of these books, old and new. Especially students who do not have lectures between protests and blockades currently have plenty of time to read reading that leads to the root and therefore understanding of their and our current problems and dilemmas.

Because, in fact, nothing fundamentally new is happening in Serbia. All this has already been seen, only the actors are different and the means of struggle for the supremacy of good and evil are different. The saying "history repeats itself as a farce" has also been abused, which does not mean that it is not deadly accurate in the current Serbian case.