The literary program of the XXXV "Grad Teatar" festival continued the night before yesterday, when the writer Maša Kolanović presented herself to the Montenegrin audience for the first time.
For the collection of stories "Honored insects and other creepy stories", Kolanović received the "Libar za vajk" audience award at the Pula Book Fair, the European Union Award for Literature and the "Vladimir Nazor" Annual Award for Literature of the Republic of Croatia.
The moderator of the evening was a journalist, literary critic and editor at Radio Belgrade 1, Tamara Krstić who, on the occasion of her guest appearance at Gradu Teatr, connected the words city and theater with the works of Maša Kolanović.
"The city is something that is very conceptually important for every book and every writing by Maša Kolanović, first of all the biographical Zagreb where she was born, where she lives and works, but also the literary Zagreb. A city that closes into special spaces that are no longer squares and streets, but the outskirts of the city, but on the other hand, the city is taken over by banks, shopping centers, telecommunication branches and apartments that have worn out, but in which the concept of the city, the concept of life, has also worn out". said Krstić.
Maša Kolanović pointed out that cities are part of her intimate biography, as well as her intellectual one.
"All these cities encourage me to reflect on our contemporary era, which I would frame in the last 30 years, from the beginning of the war to this transition to capitalism in which we all found ourselves. We had a big change from socialism to transition, our cities, our values, certain structures were changing before our eyes and that is dominant in this collection of stories. Considering the fact that we are in the square, which has always meant the exchange of ideas and opinions, I think that there is less and less of that. We are treated less and less as citizens and more and more as consumers. That's why this festival, this place and this square are our fair position, which we must always insist on," said Kolanović. Building on the second determinant, the word theater, Tamara Krstić said that when talking about the poetics of Maša Kolanović, we can talk about the theater of absurdity we live in, micro-monodramas, Brecht's theater.
"The heroes of Masha's books are the Striker with an exclamation mark, the Rebel with a question mark and the Consumer with three dots. It is also the title of one of her studies. In these characters, the theme is also revealed, something that is a poetic characteristic, that connects and cannot separate something that is the author's intellectual, scientific being from what is literary. Only the perspective and the author's voice change", Krstić pointed out.
Maša Kolanović works as an associate professor at the Department of Croatian Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb. At the same faculty, she graduated in Croatian studies and comparative literature and received her doctorate.
"My research and literary work complement each other. I wouldn't be occupied with these things I write about if I didn't have research insights into everything I do. And everything that I want to say, and I can't say it in a scientific type of discourse, I say in my stories. I separated those two fields, I don't think it's good to mix them either. If I were to essay too much in my work, it would be a bit pathetic, and on the other hand, burdening the literary text with some intellectualism is simply not good. "I have a need to tell a story about everything I study, which has its own realization and emotional impact," said Kolanović.
Reading and working on yourself are extremely important
There is no quick solution to the problem facing today's society, but if there was a solution, then it would be to work on yourself, Kolanović believes.
"We need to focus on empathy, critical thinking and reading. From the perspective of humanities, the solution is to work on yourself, and I think that reading is very important. It's not that people don't read today, but mostly they read 'trash'. To get a complex, empathetic, critical view - it requires effort. I believe that this is something that should be insisted on. There is no instant solution, but long-term work on yourself can be a solution. By working on ourselves, we will become better people, and therefore society will also be better".
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