The literary program of the XXXVIII Grad Teatar festival continued at Trg pjesnika with the guest appearance of Danka Ivanović, who presented her first novel "Empty Houses". Ivanovic explained that it all started with a short story writing course.
"After nine months on the course, it turned out that I was writing the same story all the time, and that's how the idea of writing a novel was born. Writing poetry went parallel to that, and it turned out to be of great importance. All these elements came together in this novel," she said, explaining how the title "Empty Houses" was chosen.
"Those initial stories chose Montenegro as a topos, and the names of the topos are realistic. I avoided chronology because the novel should not be read linearly. I removed the names to show how certain patterns of behavior are repeated in a society that considers a house without men to be empty The question is why we consider them empty, are they really empty? I stuck to a memory within which these parameters and paradigms changed. The title 'Empty Houses' was a compromise solution because the search for it continued a year. It seemed to me that it was a broad enough term to encompass all layers of the novel, without limiting it," explained Ivanovic.
During the evening, Ivanovic spoke about the reactions of the reading public to her debut novel.
"A lot of people cried. I think it's because they're not used to talking about some things out loud. Things don't change, but they repeat themselves, and if they're said now, people have a valid reason to cry. Some biographical information is common knowledge. I had the problem with writing in the context of whether I have the right to write. I came to a stage when not writing was no longer an option, I had to write," said Ivanovic.
The moderator of the evening was writer Srđan Srdić, who noticed that some female readers told him that the novel 'Empty Houses' is a women's book, to which Ivanovic replied that she had no problem with that.
"This is a de facto women's book. Does this exhaust all its symbolic potential? I think not. This is an important frame of the story and a necessary layer. This is a feminist book that shows how much women are the wings of the patriarchy due to the lack of awareness and lack of recognition of these matrices that we carry I remember when my grandmother said to me, 'you can crush a female child', it's easy to control it. It's difficult to get out of that easiness of crushing female children and realize what we're doing is changing or not we pass it on. That's why it's important for women to read, but also for men. My uncle closes the book when he's overwhelmed by emotions. There are various reactions," said Ivanovic.
Srdić stated that the novel "Empty Houses" could become a pioneering text in contemporary Montenegrin literature.
"I was trying to remember some such radical women's books from the last 25 years. I worked with young authors who are award-winning poets, but they are not radical texts like this," said Srdić, and Ivanović added that the explanation lies in the genre and form.
"This is not a classic novel, it is not a uniform form, it does not have an epic scale, it has a lot of lyrical content. It should be read like a poem, we don't have to understand every sentence. In this vagueness lies the potency of meaning and symbols that the book carries, as well as in the silence that it expresses through frequent questions. These silences make you think further".
Speaking about the languages in the novel, Ivanovic recalled her childhood.
"When I was a child, we had two languages: one at home and the other at school. You were constantly under pressure not to let the language out of the house because language is a matter of unconsciousness, memory, memories and experiences that someone conveys to you. Language is the key to those the matrix of transmission. Language and grammar are laws to be respected. Even as a child, the struggle to be aware of which language you speak. In this text, the key is in different languages The world. These perspectives help the main character to deconstruct the world. This dissonance of reality is further emphasized, and this interweaving was relevant. I still don't know the locative case." concluded Ivanovic.
Bonus video:
