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With these words, Branimir Scepanovic, in a conversation with “Novosti”, summed up his impressions of the ceremony in the Serbian Literary Association, when the book of his selected prose “That Other Time” was presented.
It has been out of the focus of our audience for a long time. One of the world’s most important, most widely read and most famous contemporary Serbian writers, along with espresso and water, in the coffee garden in Kosančićev venac, admits that he is a bit “desperate”.
* Will you return to the stage with this book at SKZ Circle?
– It does not matter if the writer appears in person or withdraws from one side, because books are the ones that must mark the presence and meaning of someone.
* How did you feel before the new edition of “Mouth full of earth”, “Death of Mr. Goluža” and other novels?
– I was tired at the end.
Photo: PM
* Let’s go back to the time when you became a writer …
– My father was a teacher and published song books, sonnets, he had a huge library. I grew up in that environment and probably inherited those inclinations and appropriate talents from my father.
* What attracted you to the literary waters?
– In Podgorica, where I was born, when I was a high school student, I wrote a story, hiding it from everyone, which I sent to the contest of the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro, under a code. I won the first prize, I was in the seventh institute and that’s how it started …
* What was the time like in the seventies of the 20th century, when your most famous works were written?
– They were very fruitful years in the literary sense. A wide range of important writers and works, everything was intense and fascinating, because the constellation of writers, from the elderly to our young generation, was present with their works and active participation in cultural life. Those are the years, as Stojan Djordjic said in the promotion, that marked our literature.
* What then was the meaning of literature?
– Absolutely bigger. Today vulgarity, variety, superficiality triumph. Our daily life is a sad story, where culture, literature and serious art are marginalized and do not have the possibility of coming to light. Today, it seems, it is more important to inform people which pop singer was at the dentist, if you had an argument with your lover, or if you met someone else, than to say that someone published an important book or painted a great picture.
* Which of the writers was closest to you, who did you date?
– With many, specifically with Miodrag Bulatović, who is a great writer. He was a twisted man in a poetic sense, with a great imagination, humor, a little devilish, but great as a writer and as a friend. I also dated many others, with Meša Selimović … I highlight Bulatović, whose work, unfortunately, is rarely mentioned now, because our reality becomes vulgar and superficial.
SUCCESS IN MEXICO
THE NOVEL “A full mouth of earth” has been translated into 32 languages and continues to be successful … – It had the greatest resonance with French, 23 editions were published. It was recently translated into Spanish and became a bestseller and big hit in Mexico. Now they are asking for my other books to be published there.
o Do writers take literature more seriously than they do today?
– Then there was controversy, debate and disagreement, there was everything. Today, the electronic media, the newspapers, the tabloid press and the whole world are dealing with things that are outside the culture and that are not meaningful.
* How did you deal with popularity and great success abroad?
– A man gets used to it, like everything. In the first moment, with the first successes, the author rejoices, that is why he perceives it as something significant and beautiful, but, over time, it becomes something ordinary.
* Even when a publisher in America, in the preface to the short story “A Mouth Full of Earth”, writes that it is one of the six best books he has ever read, including the Bible?
– Yes. It usually becomes when I go into a Parisian bookstore and buy a book, and they put it in a paper bag in which the cover of that novel is completely painted, where it says: “Cult book” … Meanwhile, it became in proofreader of Slavic studies here, she started studying Serbian when she read “Mouth Full of Earth” in Japanese …
It becomes commonplace when the translator Jean Desca calls me from Polynesia, from the island where Gauguin lived and painted, and tells me: “Here is a man who is fascinated with his books and who is happy to have met me as his translator “. Even when the most important newspapers “Le Monde” and “Figaro” say that it is a masterpiece, a magnificent poem, the Greek critics say that it is the “Little Night Music” of Mozart and the famous Belgian critic that it is perhaps the most significant and acute of current world literature. … And so these enormous details become something ordinary, something that does not make you happy, does not even surprise you …
* Does this mean that the poetics of the absurd and existentialism are still important?
– It is a spiritual category and an eternal philosophy. It is not something ephemeral, for the season or a particular moment. It is always valid, because it is a frequency and a spiritual vibration for all times.
Photo by P. Milošević
* How did you fit into writing and film?
– I wrote the script for the film professionally and have about fifteen films, according to my books and scripts. Zivko Nikolic’s film is well known, but “Goluza” was made by Hollywood under the title “Julian Poe.” They wrote the script, played by Christian Slater …
According to my novel “Redemption”, the Swiss, the Germans, the French made a film that was also very remarkable and successful. Seven or eight graduation movies were shot in Italy, Poland, France after “Mouths Full of Earth” … Alain Delon was once terribly heated to make a movie based on this novel, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
* Interest in filming does not wane …
– The Finns and the Swedes wanted to make a one-hour television movie and signed a contract with me, paid an advance, but on the condition that I write the script and I did not write it. That is a big mistake for me.
* Did you miss the fact that you haven’t published a new book for decades?
– It is not. People my age should retire, I retired, because what do I have to say when everything in the world has been said from Homer to today and everything is known.
* Have you advertised a scrapbook after all?
– I should write it down. They are decades of life and socialization, with a huge number of people of different profiles and spectra, from statesmen, queens, the greatest possible actors, directors, not to mention …
* Who’s there?
– From Theodorakis and Bondarchuk to Barton, from the Dutch Queen Juliana to Josip Broz, not to mention my friends who play chess with me.
* Have you started writing?
– Yes I am. The working title is “Never Again”.
* Are you still dating writers today?
– Unfortunately, unfortunately, all the writers and my friends are in heaven …
I abstained in the rain controversy
* HOW do you see the controversy you had with Kiš today?
– I was very restrained, I didn’t sway much, I only reacted to some accusations with an answer. I don’t see the importance of talking about it now.
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