The young Bosnian writer Almin Kaplan presented himself to the literary audience in Tivat on Saturday evening as part of the "Tivat Literary Summer" event in that city, promoting his novel "Meho".
Moderator of the evening, editor of Tivat City Library publications, Dr. Miomir Abović, presenting the biography and oeuvre of this writer, pointed out the variety of literary forms through which Kaplan has so far demonstrated his exceptional literary talent, from several very successful novels, through collections of short stories, to a book of poems.
The novel "Meho" is Kaplan's most widely read and most significant work, Abović pointed out.
"It is primarily a genre novel of a character, but it is also a novel of a social environment and a very clearly defined chronotope. It is about the post-Dayton Bosnian society in the time we live in today, and Kaplan extremely skilfully, through this social novel, talks about characteristics and specifics that this society brings with it. Meho lives and works in that society, but is actually on the margins of that society, who is engaged in agriculture, who lives by selling peaches and peppers, not managing in an environment that it overtook him," he pointed out.
The novel "Meho" is a story about the Dubrava plateau between Stolac and Čapljina, about the Herzegovinian krašać and fertile fields, about returnees, builders of courtyards and gasulhans, about peaches and peppers, interpersonal relations in families and congregations, about villages but also about war and camps.
Referring to the language he speaks and writes as his homeland, Kaplan expressed his satisfaction that, after several presentations in Montenegro, he finally arrived on the coast, and how inspiring it is for him to have a conversation in our one, same language, when he has the opportunity to enjoy in its different variants.
"The ambience and the language are definitely the frames of what I write about. And the inspiration starts somewhere with Mirko Kovač, and ends with Ivan Raos and his 'Prosjeci i soniv', which means that we are talking about a good part of the Balkans where that language is spoken," he said. is Kaplan.
The novel 'Meho' was published in 2019, first in Zagreb, later in Belgrade and then in Sarajevo. It is about a story where a man tries to return to the place from where he had to leave because of the war after the war.
"I always have as a theme the possibility, that is, the impossibility of starting one's life where he left off with the beginning of the war. It is, in a way, my biography, because I myself experienced everything I write about. Meho is, of course, fiction, but is a topic that haunts me, with which I continued to deal. It is in the novel "Shušanj", which is also a story about a man, about a post-war society, about people who simply did not manage in the new times that have come how people in small communities, left to their own devices, try to somehow continue the life that was somehow made by the earlier one, violently interrupted," Kaplan pointed out.
Almin Kaplan, born in 1985, has been publishing since 2008. It started with the poetry collection 'Biber's Daughters', followed by the books "Waiting for a Horn Concert", poetry (2012), "Measles", a novel in verse (2014) , "The Mostar collection", poetry (2017), "Bukara", poetry (2017), "Trganje", novel (2017), "Meho", novel (2019), and the collection of short stories "Dubrava stories" ( 2020), "Household People" (2022), "Conversations with Mark" (2022). He published his last novel - "Shušanj" in 2023.
Almin Kaplan is considered one of the best contemporary Bosnian poets and prose writers. He is the winner of several literary awards, including the Mak Dizdar award, the Ratković evening poetry award, the Zija Dizdarević, Edo Budiša, Kočićevo pero and Skender Kulenović awards.
He lives in Rivine near Stolac.
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