The city and the book are phenomena of civilization

World Book Day was marked in the City Bookstore with a round table on the topic "Importance and meaning of books in society: then and now". Writer Balša Brković, writer Ksenija Popović, graphic designer Ana Matić, writer, theoretician and film critic, translator, Aleksandar Bečanović and actor Stevan Radusinović spoke about the book today, as well as its 'survival'.

As an illustration of the past, and not so long ago, when the book once again entered Montenegrin homes, the action "Vijesti" served as an example, which sold six times more literary titles than the population of Montenegro.

New generations are overwhelmed with a bunch of information and it is impossible to create a filter that would give them the right guidelines as to what is good and what is not.

That action, continued with the Millennium edition, was a great reaffirmation of books and reading.

"The two key facts of our civilization are the city and the book. Montenegro could not be emancipated until it received these two phenomena," said Brković, emphasizing that every day should be a holiday - a book day.

About the first real encounter with the book, Ksenija Popović says that it happened during her studies.

"The first big encounter with literature for me was during my studies. There I learned how to interpret the work and the author in the right way. That's how I defined myself, my taste, myself as a writer. I am close to the literature of America, but certainly, every culture has his Don Quixote," said Popović.

Ana Matić cites Andrić's "Signs by the Road" as her first real reading.

"I read the imprint and to this day I remained on the imprint. Then what determined me was born - will I, as a book designer, be as great as the author of its lines", Matić said, stressing that information, books, literature or fiction, previously difficult to access, "which had its charms".

Today, as Ana Matić comments, the new generations are overwhelmed by a handful of information and it is impossible to create a filter that would give them the right guidelines as to what is good and what is not.

The round table dedicated to the book, its role in society, opened numerous topics such as translation, which, as Brković points out, flourished in the former Yugoslavia, and the future of the printed book also emerged as a separate story.

The power of second reading

Aleksandar Bečanović started his presentation with the sentence that "first traumatic shocks are important in psychoanalysis".

"I would emphasize the power and importance of the second reading. When the edition of Vijesti "Millenijum" was published, that cycle of great novels enabled us to do something that is substantially important, which is to have the opportunity to read key capital works of world literature for the second time. My the experience of literature changed extremely after the second reading", said Bečanović, pointing out that after "literally reading the books", many make the mistake of thinking that they have actually read them.

"It is necessary to return to them again," believes Bečanović.