They‘ve killed our interpreter: who will interpret for us? Who will take us out of this fucking movie when we have no interpreter? When we are deaf to what we hear and blind to what we see even without an interpreter. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
For Mak Dizdar Just as Tibetan nomads choose their headman by a throw of dice in which the one who loses the gamble wins, it’s fallen to me to continue to wait for the Bogumils after you. So that there is always someone who will go out to meet them in the language they understand. Every day I open the […]
We moved a lot. In the waters of countries and cities, our fingerprints have washed away; in alcohol, our blood group has evaporated. We no longer belong to anyone. Any national anthem I hear, I stand stiff like at a closed railroad–crossing gate, till the train passes. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
For Mak Dizdar Just as Tibetan nomads choose their headman by a throw of dice in which the one who loses the gamble wins, it’s fallen to me to continue to wait for the Bogumils after you. So that there is always someone who will go out to meet them in the language they understand. Every day I open the […]
On various continents, at airports, at stadiums, everywhere I meet people who more than twenty years ago, escaping war like I, settled far and wide around the world. I feel they are there around me, who they are and where from, but I don’t notice them right away since they are indistinguishable in the crowd. They are as ordinary as […]
I can hardly keep in mind anything from yesterday’s day, but the past I remember clearly. The early years are the first to sink into the dregs of a lifespan, just as the grime of the sun and red soil settles in olive oil. The rest has no taste. In October we were regularly late returning from school, stealing on […]
No one chooses his life: the pecking of boats at the ramparts. My messages to friends, my shame toward those whom we will conquer: you know the end and the beginning of everything, the words that led me to exile. We recuperated on Hvar, going there in winter and at night when the water was far from us, under the […]
I’ve never anywhere seen a quince, but lindens bloom in Scandinavia also. Rinsed by the tea of rains, though, their scent is faint. Like a strong perfume, the scent of the Balkan linden tree in summer gets into both blankets and sweaters. Quinces rust on the wardrobes in cold bedrooms in the fall. In the Balkans both good and evil […]
Hung on a cloud, the cloak of the Tongariro volcano is clasped at the neck with a single round button: Blue Lake. At the bottom of the lake, at the height of the heart, a time bomb is ticking. We try not to think, we try not to know, but its veins like prickly goose bumps are crawling up our […]
AWARD In the courtyard of the National Library, workers are loading a truck filled to the brim with obsolete books, sentenced to death by combustion in the city’s heating plant in order to free shelf space for new popular items. The truck moves and a few lighter copies drop onto the sidewalk. A thin one with a maroon paperback cover […]
I read papers when they’re just brought in from outside, from minus 27 degrees, fresh and cold off the presses. From all the morning papers I remember only one self-sustaining article: like the recipe for a simple cake, the list of scientific advances in 2003 was inserted between the ads and Christmas wishes. Glass has been invented that refracts at […]
Those I know have all grown old, my scattered friends. The snow is getting rusty in Sweden, from the other side of the globe brief electronic messages buzz in: there’s a fire, or else there isn’t. No news is news anymore, they’ve heard it all – my tired friends. Memories are the only news we are still curious about. We […]