“I like the idea of a book being a democratic space which readers enter, carrying their own thoughts, and participate in a conversation, or experience of grace.” BookIdeasSpaceGraceReaderConversationDemocratic Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I never thought of myself as an outsider. Because outside of what? You would have to give advantage to this space where you're not, to think of it as sovereign because you're not there. I was always in the center of where I needed to be.” ThinkingGivingSpaceNeededAdvantageOutsidersSovereign Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“What I was interested in is the lens organizing my sovereign space. I avoid the term outsider and also exile for the same reason. Outsider implies a kind of nobility.” KindReasonTermSpaceOutsidersSovereignLensesExileNobility Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“Chicago has very few public spaces where people are encouraged to get together. It's partly to prevent riots, and also to segregate a city with a history of racial segregation.” PeopleTogetherSpaceCitiesChicagoSegregationRiotGet TogetherRacial Segregation Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“There is a point in fighting. There is a point in struggle. Not wholesale revolution, maybe, that might not be possible, an absolutely just society, but there are plenty of spaces and places where it's worth putting up a fight.” MightFightingSpaceStruggleRevolutionPlentyWholesale Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“I like to blow up this notion that all we have to do as writers and artists is represent reality, which is presumably solid and self-evident, with no negotiation of the gap between myself and the world, between this body and this space, which needs narration to close it.” WorldNeedsSelfBodyRealityArtistSpaceNotionBlowGapsEvidentNegotiationNarration Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls.” WritingI CanSpacePiecesParticularWallReturnProviding Author:Aleksandar Hemon
