In the spirit of his award-winning novel "NGDL", a simultaneously humorous, tragic and lucid journey through the absurdities of Balkan reality, Marinko Arsić Ivkov won over the audience in Tivat with the story of a man who, in searching for a dove, is actually searching for meaning, peace, and his own understanding of the world.
The winner of the prestigious NIN Award for 2024, promoted his award-winning novel "NGDL" (Don't Let the Dove Fly) last night in Tivat. The guest appearance of the Serbian writer and his literary evening were organized by the Tivat City Library, as part of the "November Days 2025" event.
The professor greeted the attendees. Vesna Barbić, director of the City Library, who pointed out that "NGDL" is a novel of travel and wandering - picaresque prose without a happy resolution and a soothing lesson.
The light-hearted humor that prevails in this novel means that, even though it deals with dark themes of war and nationalism in the former Yugoslavia, the prose does not leave a heavy impression. Its power lies in the joke and mockery, the laughter and wonder that it evokes, the ability to twist and question everything.
Professor spoke with inspiration about Arsić Ivkov's novel Alexander Jerkov, who was also the president of the jury for the NIN award.
"The general characteristic of Christian civilization is that it does not know how to laugh. You have no laughter, and you have sadness, regret, lamentation. The whole of history is a fall, and salvation does not come in the joy of laughter. Well, not everything is so black - we have a Renaissance. I will not tell you in Boka what carnivals are. Literature has developed in both expressions - tragic and comic. In ancient and folk literature, they are equal. Our civilization does not know that. And this novel comes as a response to these tendencies. What is written about the nineties? Everything is tragedy. And it was, let's not underestimate it. But we will not talk and write like that until the end of the century. And hence strong reasons for this novel to stand out - a satirical humoresque in which some clown is looking for a pigeon," Jerkov pointed out.
Speaking about the plot of the novel "NGDL", Jerkov explained that the main character - a passionate pigeon fancier from Vojvodina - loses his most beautiful and best pigeon, which is why he embarks on an uncertain journey in search of the precious bird across the war-torn areas of the disintegrating SFRY - Croatia and Bosnia - experiencing a series of tragicomic adventures.
This story, he said, carries numerous symbolic messages about the mentality of the people of this region, their irrational national and religious passion, and about the elusive dove as a symbol of the unattainable ideal of peace and tranquility.
"A pigeon escaped from Klipan. And he wanted to find it, for the universe to collapse. These people are at war, these people are building academies, no one knows who is with whom, and this one is looking for his pigeon. A raving of his own kind. But the pigeon is a great symbol, and Marinko has learned all this almost since prehistoric times. The pigeon is not a harmless bird. Such symbolic potential has been used here. This is not a carrier pigeon, but a pigeon that flies beautifully. What is it for? Nothing. But it flies beautifully - and it is closer to the Lord than we are. And this one is looking for it," said Jerkov.
He added that "Marinko is not naive."
"He has a critical edge, he has various conclusions. His world is not black and white, us and them. To weigh things up well, to orient yourself better and to mock yourself. When you laugh at trauma, you have overcome it. That is laughter when the spring of the spirit relaxes. It is not a roaring laughter, but a quiet, inner one. Beautifully arranged, dynamically, a story driven to the end. How can you not give him an award? And the novel also says that he will receive the NIN award - he had a hunch," Jerkov concluded.
Marinko Arsić Ivkov said that in the novel he actually predicted that he would win the NIN award, which later came true.
"I predicted that I would receive the Pigeon Association award, and I did, in a symbolic way. I should have mentioned something else, maybe I would have. Someone mentioned the Nobel Prize. In this region, everyone was at war with everyone, blood flowed in streams. I waited for some time to pass, for the dust to settle, and then I tried to find the spark, the cause of the wars. And the cause is stupidity, human stupidity. War is bloody, everyone is right. But you need to step back a bit and see it all from the right angle. You need to look for your pigeon," the author pointed out.
Marinko Arsić Ivkov graduated in General Literature with a degree in Literary Theory from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. He is the author of the novels "Čemu nova kritika", "Čaruga", "Bački Don Quixote", collections of short stories "Smrt u Akademiji nauka" and "Náčitana gospoda", the television drama "Šta se dogodilo sa Filip Preradovićem" (directed by Slobodan Šijan), as well as numerous essays on Serbian literature. He has also published a treatise on gastronomy.
He is the founder of the "journal for reexamining the past", Hereticus, the first editor of selected works by Dragiša Vasić, and the winner of the "Miloš Crnjanski" award.
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