In memoriam
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025): Damn good writer
Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa died in Lima at the age of 90. He was "a damn good writer", wrote Teofil Pančić at one time
Philip David (1945-2025)
The fifth corner of a square room
A lot could be said about Filip David as a writer of Serbian literature from its most creative post-war era, but little has been said - wrote Branko Kukić at the beginning of the introductory text of the two-issue edition of "Gradac" magazine, which is dedicated to Filip David.
It contains a fragment of David's opus, such as Sketches for a dream story, A well in a dark forest, One night in Warsaw, No man's land, plays One day, my Jamel, scenario Worlds in chaos, his correspondence with Mirko Kovač and Borislav Pekić, as well as the text that Filip David spoke at the National Library of Serbia at the award ceremony for the Best Book in the Network of Public Libraries for the novel House of memory and oblivion, a text that began with a fence from the presence of Tomislav Nikolić, the then president of Serbia. "Respecting the institution of the president, I have not supported his nationalist and war policy since the 90s. He has no place here and on this occasion," said David in front of the guests.
The double issue also contains texts about him by admirers of Filip David. One of those, a text by Svetislav Basara Princ "Photogallery”, we announce.
At the end of the introductory text entitled Filip David - Everything is on fire, Kukić says that it was not his intention to publish all the important texts written about Filip David, but to say more "about a special atmosphere and temperature that bring a special current, presented in a special way, because each literary epoch has special creators who look at the world, internal and external, from a special angle - the fifth - in a square room. This fifth angle simultaneously demolishes the old house and creates a new one".
In memoriam: Otto Tolnai (July 5, 1940 – March 27, 2025)
Resistance alone is not enough.
About an encounter with Otto Tolnai
Interview: Slavenka Drakulić, writer
To write about what is kept silent
"Friends will listen to you with sympathy and compassion when you tell them about your illness and, for example, the consequences of chemotherapy. But will they understand you? Only to a certain extent. Severely ill people certainly notice that after a while people no longer listen to them"
Cinema
The Domestication of Burroughs
Queer, directed by Luca Guadagnino, starring Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Dean de Wit
Interview: Novica Milić
To write to live
One good musician, or painter, or writer, or thinker is worth more than all the main committees of all the parties, all the members of parliament, all the ministers in some imaginary government. They are - or should be - interchangeable. Artists and thinkers by their gift and type of intelligence are not. Culture is art, hence the art of life
Interview: Ayelet Gundar-Gošen, writer
I refuse to limit myself because of political correctness
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is a multi-awarded Israeli writer, author of four novels and several film scripts. After studying psychology, she studied film and dramaturgy, worked as a journalist and activist of the Association for Civil Rights
Interview: Milenko Bodirogić, writer and publisher
You cannot heal yourself
"U Sandblasting sand The Husin revolt is the central axis, but it is also a novel about friendship, about the city, about crimes, about books, music and pictures, about words as they are lunatik i bastard, about the fear of converts, and if you want a novel, as the narrator would say, Fr fucking love. If there were some metaphysical bookkeeper, who would add up and subtract all his inputs and outputs, the balance would be extremely uninventive - life"
Interview: Borivoj Gerzić, writer
It always seems impossible, until it happens
When I start writing, I don't know what will come out. Something triggers me - it can be anything: a voice, a face, a couple of pigeons on the Sims. Or that first sentence appears on its own. Sometimes it's a verse, then a song grows, sometimes it's a sentence that becomes a short story, and here a novel was born.
Street
Small, barely a hundred meters, barely five houses
He is a living witness of what the streets of old Belgrade would have looked like had it not been for their widening in the regulations from the second half of that century - the street of One Thousand and Three Hundred Kaplar
Do we have literary stars in Serbia?
The clouds obscured the stars
The 20th century was a period when culture was important to both individuals and states, literature had a greater social impact, but there were also much fewer media, and because of that, among other things, it was more visible and present. The mass culture that dominates today, with the presence of the Internet and social networks, has changed everything. Some other contents and values have gained importance, and great writers and their books and attitudes are still marginalized today
Roman
Antigone in Međimurje
Christian Novak: A case of self-destruction; Literary workshop Rašić, Belgrade, 2023.
Jubilee
Kafka - a few key words
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Franz Kafka, whose novels, for example in To the process, an inexorable force turns a living human into a mechanical device and then "winds" it up at its own will.
Nobel prize
Han Kang from South Korea is the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
Han Kang from South Korea is the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the explanation states that she was awarded for "intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."
Hispanic American novel
Ljosa, Cortazar and other compatriots
Interest in Hispanic literature has had its ups and downs, but it never stopped. The old, already somewhat toothless lions were replaced by young ones, eager for fame and praise. Geopoetica's new edition will have both
Campaign against the writer
Marko Vidojković: Whoever speaks the truth, we will find him
"The last Serb will die before publicly apologizing." Under that title, the German daily "Tagescheitung" brings an interview with the Serbian writer Marko Vidojković, who left the country
Climate changes
The Planet Goes to Hell: How Climate Fiction Became a Popular Literary Genre
An exceptional text by Dragoslav Dedović about how "climate fiction" became popular in literature because the planet is going to hell: "The July sun burns unbearably. It burns people, animals, plants. To whom does this revoked god worship?", wrote Stevan Tontić a long time ago. But this murderous sun is now not July but June. The revenge of the revoked god is early.
In memoriam
Paul Auster has passed away: The departure of the writer of solitude
One of today's most important writers, Paul Auster, died on Tuesday at the age of 77 after a long battle with lung cancer. His works were existentialist stories about outsiders
Interview: Namik Kabil, writer
I let myself down the cliffs of my own obsessions
"Guided by the starting point that a writer should tell what he knows, I started from the family's decision to demolish the house in Trebinje that used to be a home and build a new building on that site. That was the core of the story at the very beginning, but I quickly realized that it was necessary to describe and explain what the core was, what kind of life, city, time, and especially what happened, I mean first of all the war. And I can only rationally order and name these listed here now, while in the very process of writing the book it was more a matter of feelings that I relied on."
In memoriam: Goran Petrović (1961–2024)
A straw of light in the mortar
Goran Petrović went down into the mining shafts and in the terrible darkness he searched for the ore of language and story that no one had hit upon before him. That's why his novels, especially those two from the end of the last century, are light and heavy like the feather of an angel that the abbot of Spas's home keeps in his beard.
In memoriam: Goran Petrović (1961-2024)
Goran Petrović - a nobleman
Friends and admirers of Goran Petrović say goodbye to this important and respected writer, irreplaceable in their lives. The poet Miodrag Raičević is one of them
In memoriam
Writer and academician Goran Petrović passed away
He entered the literary scene with the book of short prose "Tips for an easier life" in 1989. His novels and story collections have been published in more than 130 editions, of which 60 editions have been translated into 15 languages.