“Literature is always something - it is either story or poetry, ideally both. That is, you always know what it is and even if the interpretation is not available, the experience of language is.” IfsKnowsStoriesLiteratureLanguageAvailableInterpretation Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I write and read with the assumption that literature contains knowledge of human experience that is not available otherwise.” WritingHumansLiteratureAvailableAssumptionHuman Experience Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“For a fight to be productive, or at least relevant, writers should fight over different demands they put upon writing (as an individual, private act) and literature (a network of relations in which we are all involved).” ShouldWritingDifferentFightingLiteratureIndividualInvolvedDemandRelationProductiveRelevant Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I've read books in school that were written by ideological rote - they were brainwashers. Therefore, any art, any literature, that has a clearly defined political goal is repellent to me.” ArtBookSchoolPoliticalLiteratureGoalWrittenDefinedIdeological Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“It's not that war crimes stop as soon as a novel about them is published. Literature operates slowly, it is always inching toward bliss, never quite getting there.” WarLiteratureNovelCrimeBlissNever QuitWar Crimes Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I started appreciating and valuing different things. Some things just became insufferable to me, and not just literature. I used to like horror movies and now I couldn't stand them.” DifferentUsedLiteratureHorrorAppreciateDifferent ThingsInsufferable Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“The beauty of literature - also its limit - is that it is inescapably personal, even if you're writing science fiction.” IfsWritingLiteratureFictionLimitsScience Fiction Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Europe is a rapidly changing place, on every level. Immigration, post-communist transitions, the unification, steady presence of war and conflict, the inescapable challenges to the notion of national literature/culture-it all exerts pressure upon writers who must be aware of the transformational possibilities of the situation.” WarLiteratureChallengesSituationPossibilityConflictImmigrationSteady Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“You can see the diversity that pieces in the anthology represent, and then the interconnections-obvious and less obvious-between various stories or between various modes of storytelling. Diversity generates need for conversation, conversation generates common interests, as well as differences. Literature, as a human project, is all about that.” LiteratureInterestCommonDiversityVariousStorytelling Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.” LiteratureFictionDistinctionNonfictionDescribingFiction And NonfictionBosnians Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.” WarAmericaChoicesLiteratureMastersProgramPlanningCivil WarAmerican LiteratureBosniaNorthwestern Author:Aleksandar Hemon
