For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house it was to salvage photos.
Aleksandar HemonDespite all that I know rationally, and everything that I can put into words, I can say that I have difficulty giving up the notion of the nobility of art.
Aleksandar HemonOne builds one's life in consistency; one invests it with the belief, however unsupported by reality, that one has always been what one is now, that even in one's distant past one could recognize the seed from which this doomed flower has bloomed.
Aleksandar HemonSometimes I don't write at all. Someone once asked me, "What do you do when you're not writing?" And I said, "I idle."
Aleksandar HemonEurope has never been a monolithic space, it contains a lot of people, a lot of languages and infinite supplies of history. I didn't need to do anything to showcase diversity. It is a condition of life and art in Europe, contained in every random sample.
Aleksandar Hemon