A book is not only written - after it's finished it starts writing you, the writer. You become its notebook, its sheet of paper on which it forces you to think and rethink your original ideas, your topics, your research, actually everything.
Sasa StanisicRegarding fiction, our concern shouldn't be the author's origin (and of course I am forgetting the sales people right here), because that is actually merely a simplified, almost insulting judgment of the book by its cover - or rather by the name and origin of its author - an act of discrimination if we want to say it in a more provoking way, but at the least an act of ignorance and false empathy.
Sasa StanisicIt can stand in the way of narration in cases where we want the protagonist to actually go through some kind of catharsis while our own (non-fictional) experiences and stories lead to something banal or completely uninteresting.
Sasa StanisicSomething as radical as a war can only be understood (if at all) through the collaboration of journalists, academia, artists and, of course, people.
Sasa StanisicEurope is not becoming more unified - well, yes, on paper - but not as long as the criteria for so many things (import regulations, border control, visa politics...etc.) are still made in an unjust, unreasonable way.
Sasa StanisicFor example, an author whose parents fled a war but he himself was born in the country where they fled to, and that is where he went to school and college before he wrote his first book of poetry in the language of this country - he should be labeled as: "Author whose parents fled a war but he himself was born in the country where they fled to, and that is where he went to school and college before he wrote his first book of poetry in the language of this country."
Sasa Stanisic