Context
An Interview with Svetislav Basara
By Ana Lucic
Svetislav Basara, born in 1953, is a
major figure in Serbian and Eastern European literature. He is the
author of more than twenty literary works, including novels, story
collections, and essays. He has received numerous literary awards and
his novel Fama o biciklistima [The Fuss about Cyclists, 1988] was
proclaimed by Serbian literary critics to be one of the ten best novels
of the 1980s. In the recently released Chinese Letter, a man who’s
unsure of his own name is ordered by two mysterious men to write “a
statement of about 100 pages,” and so he records the absurd experiences
of his daily life. The first of Basara’s works to be published in
English, Chinese Letter is one of the most inventive works of
contemporary literature. ANA LUCIC: What are the origins of Chinese Letter? SVETISLAV BASARA: Chinese Letter is my first novel, and it originated from the need to write a novel.
Until that time I was writing stories and I felt that I had more to say
than what usually goes into five or six typed pages. But it wasn’t an
easy thing to do. When I started writing this novel I didn’t have
enough life or literary experience. That’s why I opted for a method of
writing a “report” to somebody about something, which resulted in a
book that was extremely well received in the literary circles of that
time, though I still think—I don’t know if it’s wrong to think so—that
all the attention is somehow insincere. In terms of my motives for
writing this book it should be known that I started working on Chinese Letter at the end of the seventies. Some remember that time as a pretty good
one, but this was actually a time of terrible spiritual and
psychological dullness, which was the result of the degeneration and
petrifaction of a doctrine which was crazy from the very
start—communism. So, I was writing this book in order to be somewhere
else. To add some excitement to my life. That’s why I gave the novel
the title Chinese Letter. China is pretty far from Serbia. AL: I’ve read Chinese Letter a few times now, but I still find it incredibly funny. Is this a typical reaction that you get from your readers? SB:
Yes, everybody laughs. I, however, wasn’t laughing while writing the
book. Even nowadays I don’t laugh when I write. Writing—art in
general—has a lot to do with sadness. But I have to admit, the best
quality of my books is that they provoke laughter. It’s very, very
strange how close laughter is to despair and vice versa. AL: Which authors do you consider to be your literary influences? SB:
My influences are visible in my books and I have never tried to hide
that. I am not so stupid as to consider myself original. So, Kafka,
Beckett, Borges. I would also add two writers whose influence is not
that obvious in my writing—Proust and Augusto Roa Bastos. Proust has
his place in the Canon, but Roa Bastos, it seems to me, is
insufficiently recognized. Of course, there is also García Márquez and
his One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ivan Alexeevich Bunin and
Boris Pilnyak and a whole series of excellent writers whose names I
won’t mention simply because this interview could go on forever. AL:
You dropped out of the Serbian Writers’ Association during the
nineties—a period of turbulence and war in the Balkans. What were your
reasons for doing this? SB: At that time, the Serbian Writers’
Association turned into a parapolitical organization, a hot bed for a
number of retrograde ideas headed by absolutely insignificant writers
and I simply didn’t see the point to being part of such an organization. AL: Do you still find time to write now that you’re the Ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro to Cyprus? SB: Yes. Strangely, I now have more time for writing. I recently finished a long novel entitled Heart of the Country about the fictitious stay of Friedrich Nietzsche in Cyprus. It will
come out in the near future, and the English translation will be
published by Mouphlon Press in Nikosia. AL: You said in an interview that from now on you’re only going to write love stories. Is this true? SB:
I said this to one newspaper that I don’t have a very high opinion of.
Most of the newspapers in Serbia are frivolous publications, and that’s
why I don’t take them seriously. Since these newspapers are shamelessly
misinforming the public, I took the liberty to misinform them. AL:
You also said in an interview that you are always on the side of
spineless characters. What is it that attracts you to write about such
characters? SB: I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but the
majority of people living in this age, including myself, could be
described as spineless. This isn’t so bad. It’s partly due to the speed
of life nowadays. It’s the same with people as with money: the more of
something there is, the less valuable it is. Hyperinflation of
humanity. Fatigue. The crisis of meaning. It seems that nothing exists
except for selling and buying. But I repeat—this isn’t so bad. It might
sound strange, but certain experts say that it’s easy to find salvation
in this age. The catch is that you then have to endure it. AL: Do you feel like you’re part of some national or international literary movement? SB:
No. As Fritz would say, I feel averagely awful. And I do care about
that very much. I have no proof, but I am convinced that people who
feel great are, in some way, lost. Selected Works by Svetislav Basara in Translation: Chinese Letter. Trans. Ana Lucic. Dalkey Archive Press, $12.95. Selected Untranslated Works: Bumerang [Boomerang]. Narodna knjiga, €9.33.
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Drvo istorije [History Tree]. Out of Print.
Dzon B. Malkovic [John B. Malkovich]. Narodna knjiga, €9.33.
Fama o biciklistima [The Fuss about Cyclists]. Out of Print.
Fenomeni [Phenomena]. Out of Print.
Ideologija heliocentrizma [The Ideology of Heliocentrism]. Out of Print
Kratkodnevica [Winter Solstice]. Narodna knjiga, €9.33.
Looney tunes. Narodna knjiga, €10.89
Masine iluzija [Illusions Machines]. Glas srpski, €8.07.
Mongolski bedeker [Mongolian Guidebook]. Narodna knjiga, €10.89.
Na gralovom tragu [On the Grail’s Trail]. Out of Print.
Na ivici [On the Edge]. Out of Print.
Najlepse price Svetislava Basar [Best Short Stories of Svetislav Basara]. Prosveta, €10.67.
Napuklo ogledalo [Cracked Mirror]. Narodna knjiga, €6.22.
Peking by Night. Narodna knjiga, €10.89.
Price u nestajanju [Disappearing Tales]. Out of Print.
Sabrane drame [Collected Plays]. Out of Print.
Srce zemlje [Heart of the Earth]. Narodna knjiga, €7.56.
Sveta mast [Holy Lard]. Narodna knjiga, €10.89.
Tamna strana Meseca [Dark Side of the Moon]. Out of Print.
Ukleta zemlja [Doomed Land]. Narodna knjiga, €10.89.
Virtualna kabala [Virtual Kabala]. Out of Print.
Vuciji brlog [The Wolf’s Lair]. Narodna knjiga, €6.22.
