Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemonis a Bosnian-born American fiction writer, essayist, and critic. His best known novels are Nowhere Manand The Lazarus Project...
NationalityBosniak
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth9 September 1964
war literature never-quit
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.
writing literature assumption
I write and read with the assumption that literature contains knowledge of human experience that is not available otherwise.
literature stories language
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.
appreciate literature different
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.
writing fiction literature
The beauty of literature - also its limit - is that it is inescapably personal, even if you're writing science fiction.
literature fiction-and-nonfiction bosnians
In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.
cords happens knows vocal
When we're upset, our vocal cords tighten and we can't speak. And when I lie - well, I can't lie, because the same thing happens - everyone who knows me knows that when I start squeaking, I've started lying.
calling continuity separates time trouble
The trouble with calling a book a novel, well, it's not like I'm writing the same book all the time, but there is a continuity of my interests, so when I start writing a book, if I call it 'a novel,' it separates it from other books.
ask certainly confess confessing life pieces secrets wrote
I really don't feel that any of the pieces I wrote were confessions; there are no revelations about secrets in my life, and actually I have nothing to confess and I certainly do not ask for redemption and there is no reward for confessing that I expect.
best praise time worst
You are always working on your worst book and your best book at the same time. The praise does not make you write better, and it shouldn't make you write worse, either.
book solidarity reader
Whatever solidarity I have established with other writers individually, it is usually organized around books. We connected as readers, as it were, not writers.
political demand moral
What you demand from storytelling is a moral - even political - import. I tend to shun that didactic aspect.
book ideas space
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.
book important may
To me, the solidarity of readers is far more important than the solidarity of writers, particularly since readers in fact find ways to connect over a book or books, whatever they may be.