The writer from Sarajevo is once again in the spotlight of the world media

Aleksandar Hemon: Europe is falling apart into provinces; they transfer hungry refugee children to each other—until they die! The new novel by the famous Sarajevo writer with an address in the USA, Aleksandar Hemon, deals with the global problem of immigrants and their dehumanization, which the author talks about in an interview for Jutarnji List, referring to the fascist and fascist cruelty of certain European countries. Source: Jutarnji.hr/ Patricia Kiš

"The Making of Zombie Wars", a new book by Aleksandar Hemon, a writer from Sarajevo who lives in Chicago, has just been published in England by the publisher Picador and has been written about by the leading media, from the Guardian to The Independent. The book will be published here by V.B.Z. Hemon is an international literary star. , his best-known works are "The Book of My Life", which talks about very intimate experiences, and "The Lazarus Project", which was included in the list of the 100 best books of the millennium by The New Yorker, identity and dislocation. In your new book “The Making of Zombie Wars,” zombies are a metaphor for the dehumanization of immigrants. That is, the scenario your protagonist is working on is about the US government turning them into zombies. It is about a topic that, as you probably know, is very current in Croatia. Interpret, the easiest way is to de-individualize them, to turn them into zombies, so as not to sympathize with them... My book does not deal directly with immigration. Being a novel, it deals with all sorts of things at once. But one of the things I found interesting about zombies—about which the hapless protagonist writes a bad script—is that in the galaxy of horror and horror are those creatures who are individually harmless, which is to say that horror and horror come from they come in droves. Zombies, therefore, are devoid of any individuality, just as they are devoid of life. There are countless of them, and they are driven by an insatiable, inexplicable hunger. I finished that novel a couple of years ago, so the images of this latest wave of disembodied, desperate refugees trying to make their way to a better life weren't available. But how refugees are deprived of their individuality, humanity, and understandable human motivation makes them, in the European media, present themselves as zombies, as a mass rolling towards us, and when they arrive, they will destroy everything that our life consists of. Such dehumanization is a prerequisite for fascistic and fascist cruelty—how else to explain that someone puts a foot on a man who is carrying his child in his arms? It seems to me that it is only a matter of time before groups of Hungarian (or Slovak, or Croatian, or whatever) patriotic volunteers start liquidating refugees before they multiply and reach the unstoppable mass.

Such dehumanization is a prerequisite for fascistic and fascist cruelty - how else to explain that someone puts a foot on a man who is carrying his child in his arms?

How do you see the situation in Europe? It seems to me that it is necessary to help those people, even at the cost of a lower quality of life for the native European population. It is a matter of basic humanity. But it also seems to me that it would be politically the smartest thing to do, even if there is a possibility that in the next elections, those in power will be punished for it. While children are being teargassed, while people are being thrown food over the wire like dogs, while armed forces trained not to sympathize are beating mothers and children, Europe is disintegrating before our eyes into vilayets that panic only care about themselves, playing brutal musical chairs: whoever closes the borders last gets all the refugees. In today's Europe, neighbors throw hungry refugee children over each other's fences and will continue to do so until these children die of their own accord. The whole project of Europe as a common space indivisible by borders, a space that includes all its citizens and enables them to realize their supranational potential, is falling apart before our eyes. Europe has become a space of exclusivity and selfishness, impossible without fences, internal and external. The book has just been published in Great Britain by the publisher Picador and has been covered by the leading media, from the Guardian to The Independent. The critic of the Guardian, for example, states that you are a talented master of the sentence, although English is not your mother tongue and you only started writing in that language at a mature age. So what is it like to write in two languages? Twice as good as in one language. The logic of our and European spaces requires that "our" language (whoever we are) be isolated and decontaminated from the influence of others, that language be protected by fences from those who are not us, considering that language is the supposed essence of ethnic and/or national sovereignty. For me, language is a space of personal freedom, a place where the oppressive national/ethnic identity can be nicely and pleasantly dismantled. The main character is 33-year-old screenwriter Joshua Levin, described as a loser who works on a script about a zombie war and teaches English on the way to earn money. In one review I read the question - how can two fatal women, Kimiko and Ana, a married woman from Bosnia, both fall in love with such a loser? I suggest you walk the streets of Zagreb, or Sarajevo, or New York and see who the male losers are walking with. Critics are, of course, entitled to their dumb prejudices, but the assumption that men and women bond and women marry only those of the same human rating isn't even dumb.

In today's Europe, neighbors throw hungry refugee children over each other's fences and will continue to do so until these children die of their own accord.

I think you said in The Independent that the problem is that it describes itself, so it probably describes itself worse than it is... In the book, there is also a psychological motivation for both Joshua's vision of himself - given that he is constantly plagued by feelings of insecurity and weakness - and for the reasons why Kimiko and Ana engage in disastrous relationships with Joshua. You had a similar offer, but the student was from Russia, not Bosnia, and you refused the offer, unlike Josh. That was about twenty years ago. The student was handsome, but I was at the beginning of a relationship that was important to me, while the student was married and had a daughter. On top of that, it seemed to me that this rant would be very logistically complicated, so I started to imagine what it would all look like. Then one day I started writing about it. You have described all major tragedies, from the death of your child to the war in Bosnia, in your works, but also some details from your life, such as possible adultery. What's it like to be so brutally honest with yourself and then share it with all your readers? If I were afraid of readers, I wouldn't write at all. Imagine a football player who is afraid of the fans. Or an opera singer who is afraid of the orchestra. Did you expect such a reception of earlier works, "The Book of My Lives" and "The Lazarus Project", which, for example, The New York Times included in the list of 100 best books of the millennium? The millennium has just begun, so what the NYT said is nice, but not very significant. I'm old-fashioned in that I think books should mature, like wine. They have to survive first impressions and go through the trials of longevity - what matters to me is what readers will think when they forget reviews and lists and are alone with the text.

The invasion of Iraq was and is an absolute disaster - moral, political, and military. It is not difficult to see how one of the causes of the current refugee crisis is the debacle in Iraq

The new novel takes place in 2003 in America, in the era of George Bush and the war in Iraq. Explain how "simplified world view and non-existent imagination lead to wrong interventions". At that time, madness and misdirected patriotism reigned in America... The invasion of Iraq was and is an absolute disaster - moral, political, and military. It is not difficult to see how one of the causes of the current refugee crisis is the debacle in Iraq. The American invasion was not only an illegal, criminal invasion, but it failed to even come close to its own goals - not even the worst, most zealous American patriots can claim that peace and progress have arrived in the Middle East region. A morbid ecstasy, motivated by revenge among a good part of the population, led to disaster. In America and American culture, very little was done about it. As if patriotism has the right to make mistakes as if collective enthusiasm is more important than the outcome of such criminal adventures. (DEPO PORTAL/BLIN MAGAZINE/aa)