Only not writing is worse than writing
Literature can oppose political revisionism.
Interviewed by : Ivana Golijanin
Olja Savičević Ivančević comes to Bookstan to talk about her two latest books, the novel "Summer with Marija" and the diary "Letters to Readers", which were published in a short period of time. On this occasion, we talked about their thematic and other occupations, literature today, and many other things.
What was the starting point for the writing/origin of "Summer with Mary" and what was the starting point for "Letters to Readers"?
"Summers with Marija" is a novel, and "Letters to the Reader" is a diary, it can also be described as a diary of the life that took place while I was writing the novel and a diary of the actual work on the novel. Both are connected by the fact that they belong to a kind of socio-autofiction that seems to write about the personal or from the personal, but actually speaks more about society itself than about the author.
"Summers with Marija" include the life of women (from) one family in a small Dalmatian town, recollections of childhood and growing up, with a continuous reference to forgotten ancestors-daughters and society's attitude towards them over time. Who are Mary for you?
It is about five women connected by the same name and the same house next to which the bougainvillea tree grows (which is a symbol of the Mediterranean fauna, but is actually of foreign origin), and not all of them are related by blood, their connections are essential. There were two incentives, one happened a long time ago when I got my hands on a book with family genealogy, and in which each tree ended when some "failed Mediterranean subject" had daughters, that's where the official mention of ancestors ended, who remained trapped in eternal daughterhood, and they continued to exist only in household legends. The desire to write those stories down, make up, invent, etc., arose later, during the summer months that I spent as an adult with my mother, who memorized those stories for me. Over time, it became clear to me that they are more than family myths, because due to their fate and the family's exposure to social upheavals, they say a lot about the lives of girls and women in Dalmatia, but also in the Balkans. One of the Marijas, Maša, was born in Bosnia and some of my favorite stories take place in Bosnia.
In the novel you have reconstructed real lives in fiction. I am curious about your relationship to history in the context of a literary work. Do we need more literature that deals with these kinds of stories?
It is very interesting that parallel history of women, which is not written, but is nevertheless written into the experience of the world as an intimate history of humanity. Now there are already a certain number of books dealing with this topic. But other parallel histories are also interesting, those that remained on the margins of society, most often in those groups that were marginalised. History in the context of the literary part makes sense when it says something about the present, so those books should be written, in a modern way, in a research way, certainly not in the aorist tense. You go into the past to learn something and bring it to the future. In our context, where history is rewritten as it pleases, telling your stories makes a lot of sense, literary memory can oppose political revisionism. It is not a monument that you can tear down or paint over, but it is more resistant.
The destinies of these women connect and condition each other through five generations, just like the three strands of hair in a braid that adorns the cover of the novel designed by Ivan Stanišić. You write the chapters of the novel that are temporally set in the distant past - the twenties, fifties and sixties of the twentieth century - using dialect and localisms, while the stories of Marijola's daughter are marked by the language of this time.
I reconstructed every summer in which a single story/fragment takes place, from the historical context to the language that was spoken in the area I am writing about, with the fact that I tried to make that speech readable even to someone who is not from that area, it was more important for me to imitate the melody of the speech, than to literally reconstruct the vocabulary of, say, the Dalmatian speech of my great-grandmother. Also, the atmosphere was more important to me than the facts that were used to talk about emotions. It was an important experience for me, because the old castellan speech that can hardly be heard today came back to my life, one of my grandmothers, but also the Bosnian of another grandmother that I thought I didn't know (and I do) or the urban Belgrade speech that my relatives used to speak (and I know that one). Time came back through language, even that which was before me. But also intimate, lost spaces. Mara, who in the novel is today's adolescent girl, generation Z, is better with English than with her mother tongue, these are some facts about the language. This opens up the question of how language changes, develops, overflows, and sometimes disappears in some of its variants; in today's context, while various language purists and nationalists insist on cementing their version of what used to be called Croatian-Serbian, is that language becoming a dialect in which only native poets will soon write? And how to save it from both nationalism and marginalization. Young people read, but very little domestic literature. She is by no means bad, but I'm afraid she was poorly presented to them.
Speaking of which: "Letters to a Reader" states that "it is difficult to be a writer in a country where language is a matter of politics." Why is it still difficult to be a writer nowadays, in these countries?
Everything here is a matter of politics, let alone language. What you quote refers to a specific ugly situation that happened at the time of writing the diary, when state institutions, in the most benign interpretation, showed that they did not distinguish the language of literature from the standard language. But I wouldn't bring up that story again, because only those who were victims of that stupidity felt ugly and uncomfortable in it, nothing happened to the others, as usual. In our countries today, there is a more subtle type of censorship that is reflected in marginalization if you don't respond to someone, either ideologically or privately, and this is more difficult for female authors because they are not as mutually "connected" as their colleagues. I am glad to notice a certain solidarity and active cooperation among women writers in the new generation. For our authors, success comes from abroad, through translations, reviews, awards abroad, and only then are we recognized to some extent at home. (And even abroad, they sometimes have expectations of what female authors from the Balkans should write about.) This is mostly not the case with authors, they are better off at home.
At the very beginning of the diary, we read a list of items that the author may or may not include in her writing. Ironically misogynistic, nationalist, etc. comments, you finally conclude that none of them adheres to the "checked regulations in parentheses". Women write more and more and do it better and more confidently. What kind of reader are you? Who would you recommend to us and who do you always come back to?
Often in interviews with authors, when they are asked to recommend something to read or single out someone they are reading, they say that they would not single anyone out, because they will surely leave someone out. I don't see how that could offend anyone. When you already have the opportunity to recommend a good book, mention an author you like, a book that is good, spread the good news. Here, I will list for you the most interesting things that I read or am reading this summer and what I would recommend for reading: Camila Sosa Villada: Bad Girls, Mircea Cartarescu: Solenoid, Tatjana Gromača: Ivan Bezdomnik and his poems, Maja Solar: And I Wanted, Ljudmila Petrushevska: Kidnapped. History of crime, Lejla Kalamujić: Hurry up, invent a city, Želimit Periš: Grace from the cypress, Jurica Pavičić: Red water. This summer I returned to Irena Vrkljan (I only now understand her well), and to Dubravka Ugrešić. And because of the film script I'm working on, I also returned to women's oral poetry, which is full of raw, fierce feminism in complete dissonance with the conservative and patriarchal social life of rural women. It was as if they found liberation in the song, and only in it, and, when they were no longer allowed to speak, they literally sang. In addition, in "Letters to the Reader" I mention a large number of authors who are creating today or who have strongly marked my reading experience, so whoever is interested, should pick it up and read it.
In "Summers" you write about taboos, about the relationship with the body and female intimacy (a description of Marijola's grandmother's first period in 1937), only to conclude in the diary that today we don't talk about things like physicality "without spasms and scans", and that's why we have "a bunch of old, degenerate teenagers in the roles of thinkers." How and when did we manage to regress so much?
Maybe I'm not old enough, I hope not old enough, to know the answer to this question. Was it like that before? I think it is, only that, when talking about Yugoslavia, physicality was thematized by men who presented things from a macho perspective, which, it seems, really corresponded to the spirit of that time and space. They didn't lie, we just remained deprived and deprived of the female perspective. After coming out of the conservative nineties, it happened that nowadays physicality is rarely discussed, except in a problematic way. Eros seems to have disappeared from art, it has also become political. It was necessary at one point, as a counter to regressive processes, but it cannot be good in the long run; that combination of political correctness and asexuality is not good for art. It is precisely because of their sensuality that we fell in love with some of the most important feminist writers, Duras, Ernaux, Ferrante, Vrkljan, and Jelinek, who is different, but I would still put her in that corpus. I read something like that in our country, in a new modern way, because it is a woman's writing in the best sense of the word. Here, I like how Maja Solar writes about sexuality and insomnia, and Dora Šustić writes a very carnal, erotic story in her debut novel "Dogs".
Both of your books contain moments of social criticism. Do you think good literature must have them, or is such engagement just an added plus?
Good literature doesn't have to have elements of social criticism, but it usually does. If it's organic, engagement is a plus. If it sticks out of the book as an intention, it is rarely good, although there are also such cases as with Atwood, Evaristo...
Which book was the hardest to work on? What have been the reactions so far and are you satisfied?
It was more difficult to work on the novel, because the diary was created on the fly, and part of it had already been published in columns. The editions of "Summer with Marija" in Croatia and Serbia were repeated half a year after the release, some finals and awards, and there is also a mention of a theater performance (not yet official, but unofficial). I guess I should be satisfied from that side, but when it comes to books, it's too early to talk about it, literature has its own dynamic which in good cases is permanent and unpredictable, or at least that's how it was until now. What meant the most to me was that the novel was accepted by female writers and critics, but also by women in general, of the younger generation. After reading, many of them had the need to share with me the story of their ancestors, so the stories continued to be transmitted and spread through conversations and correspondence, and some were encouraged to artistic work. "Letters to Readers" is a different book, it will remain in a narrow circle of faithful readers, and later it may find its way to a wider audience, I cannot know that. The opportunity to collaborate with Mehmedinović within his diary edition was beautiful and significant to me, and it was natural for me, for intimate reasons that can be read from the records, that the book should be published in Sarajevo.
Are you already involved in the work on a new book? Is there any truth in the fact that every writer must always have a story with him that he intends to turn into a literary work? (I don't remember where I read this, sorry)
Haha, I forgive. It's true, at least in my case. What penance. Only not writing is worse than writing.