That the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, through a catchphrase uttered who knows how many times, with or without great mysticism, is well remembered by fans of exciting, crime novels, films, series... Perhaps equally expected or "popular" is the return of a writer to his birthplace, which the Montenegrin author Stefan Boskovic describes it as “one of the most overused archetypes,” but still one of the most unpleasant.
Bošković has shown that even a worn-out motif can be reused and bring something new, unexpected, interesting and powerful, with his latest novel “Place of Birth”. His work, published by “Nova knjiga” at the end of last year, is based on the story of the writer’s departure and then return.
Introspective, reduced and purified in form, short, but on the other hand intense, dynamic, emotionally stripped and layered, the novel "Place of Birth" raises questions of identity, family relationships, responsibility and (illusion of) success. Motifs of freedom, death, love and guilt inevitably run through each of its aspects. Silence stands out as the dominant means of communication, and the place of birth, or rather Montenegro, stands out as a character with its own character, mentality, destiny...
"A successful writer, with a career built on contempt for his own country, returns to Montenegro only to sell the family estate. But a tragic accident on the way turns into an existential crisis. With his younger brother, whom he has ignored for years, he faces the ultimate truth about himself, his family and the illusions on which he built his life," the description of "New Book" states, adding that this is actually a story about the impossibility of escaping the place where you were born.
"The novel explores deep psychological dilemmas through the relationship between two brothers, a mythical family rift, and the question of identity: Who are you when you leave the place where you were born?" it is emphasized.
Stefan Bošković talks about his "Place of Birth", which he sees as his most personal work to date, about writers, heroes, society and environment, about success, guilt and responsibility, but also about returning to himself and his homeland, his relationship with Montenegro - in this interview.
You said that “Place of Birth” is your most personal novel, why do you perceive it that way and how would you describe it to (future) readers?
Every work contains autobiographical elements, whether the author resisted it or not. The novel is personal because it is built from my direct experience, a familiar setting, from real events, relationships and emotional breakdowns that I had to relive in my memory, and only then write them down. I think its importance is not primarily that it says about me, but that I pushed myself to be extremely precise and honest with what I came from.
You dedicated the novel to your brother, and one of the story lines deals with the relationship between brothers, as does the film “The Black Trumpet” directed by Bojan Stijović, for which you wrote the script, which was created in parallel with the novel. Are family relationships, and especially brotherly relationships, the foundation from which the entire story develops, both intimate and universal?
This relationship between the two brothers initially interested me as a private story. I always write about people I know and who are close to me, in order to further explore what they could be, in addition to what they are. In this way, I discover various angles and additional qualities they may possess. Later, this turned into an archetypal structure, a space of rivalry, guilt, unspoken expectations. The brother in the novel is a man who carries the burden of origin and belonging, in contrast to the other who leaves and believes that escape is probably a sufficient form of freedom.
The main character is a writer whom we meet at the very beginning, and the plot develops with his return to his native Montenegro. “The return of a writer to his native village is an archetype that I cannot suppress,” he says. What intrigued you about the motif of a writer returning to his homeland? Is it a story about the impossibility of leaving or about an inevitable inner return that cannot be escaped, no matter where you live?
The motif of the writer's return intrigued me precisely because it is one of the most overused archetypes in literature, but I think it is still one of the most unpleasant. Return is often presented in literature as an act of reconciliation, closing the circle, or at least as an opportunity to understand ourselves and the place we come from. I was provoked by what happens when this archetype is rejected and cannot fulfill that function, when the return does not fit into the narrative of salvation. In this novel, the return is neither nostalgia nor redemption. The writer does not return because he has matured or because he seeks forgiveness. He returns because he believes that physical distance was enough to sever the connection with his origins. But geography does not determine origins. Origins are what you carry within yourself, primarily in the way you think, in your language, in your body, in mechanisms that you do not control. Only when the hero experiences his first break, a collision, an accident, call that external factor whatever you want, does he realize that the departure was never complete.
A writer with a career built abroad and fame in his hometown, he wants to be a “writer with a capital P”. At the same time, he is a man who has lost touch with himself and his family. How important was it for you to question that idea and the projections of success that society, but also the authors themselves, often build with a certain personal sacrifice?
This is primarily a story about the impossibility of complete departure, no matter how deeply you integrate into another space, or how professionally you achieve, the author, or the hero in the novel, turns out that what he is running away from is not a place, but a relationship with family, guilt and one's own responsibility. In this sense, returning to one's homeland is not the end of the road. I would rather say that it is the point at which the illusion of escape is finally shattered. It is the moment when it becomes clear that one does not run away from one's origins by leaving, but has to live with it, whether one wants to or not.
Society tends to interpret success as proof that you made the right choice. If you succeed, then the cost of absence and the breakup of relationships are more or less justified. This mechanism is particularly strong in writers, because artistic work is often romanticized as a calling that necessarily implies isolation, egotism, and above all, emotional damage. In the novel, I wanted to show how much authors themselves participate in the construction of this myth. I too once believed that artistic work frees me from responsibility towards others, that it puts me in a special position in which personal breakdowns must be part of my biography.
Success is often measured by the distance from where we come from: geographical, class, symbolic... And your writer builds himself and his career at a distance. In your opinion, and perhaps from experience, does society more often value leaving than staying, and is this a universal experience of contemporary people from the Balkans?
I think that Balkan society very often values leaving more than staying. Leaving is seen as a sign of ambition, perhaps even courage and success, while staying is always interpreted as a lack of energy to break out of the herd. This value system is deeply rooted in these societies, which have been marked by a constant sense of stagnation, whether economic, political or otherwise, for as long as I can remember. I would say that this is an almost universal experience of the modern man from the Balkans.
“Place of Birth” bears the characteristics of the character and fate in the novel. How do you view Montenegro, not only as your own birthplace, but as a society in which stagnation, nostalgia, the desire for change, but also success, and often departure, intertwine? Is “Place of Birth” also a novel about this feeling of stagnation or about an attempt to break out of it?
In this novel, I did not view Montenegro only as a starting point, but as a space that actively participates in shaping the characters and their destinies. There is both nostalgia and a desire for escape there, and this paradox produces a sense of stagnation, primarily existential, but not because nothing is happening, but because change is constantly postponed or moved to another address.
The novel is short, without chapters, purified and concise, quite dynamic, with an interesting narrative approach in which the characters change subtly and almost imperceptibly from one to the next... Was this technical or formal reduction necessary for the sake of the rhythm, theme and atmosphere of the novel, or was it driven by the desire to "lock" the reader into the intensity of the experience?
Formal reduction was necessary, not as an aesthetic decision in itself, but rather as something the novel is about. I experienced the hero's shift in perspective as a slide between two faces, resulting from the narrator's inner disintegration. In moments of his crisis, the hero simply could not remain stable in the "I" position. This shift is not a technical trick, it is a clear sign that consciousness is breaking and that the character is beginning to view himself as someone else, someone on the outside, almost as an accused. And I wanted the reader to remain locked into that experience. Every digression, every chapter or pause in the narrative would soften the intensity and dilute the tension, and it was important to me that the unease be maintained until the end.
You said that a novel is more experienced than read - and it is. Thoughts and silence dominate, there are few spoken words. All of this carries a certain weight. Does this tell us about the inability to talk, because words may carry confrontation and vulnerability, while society still expects us to "endure" and "endure", rather than to understand or articulate what is destructive?
I decided to make the interior space the primary setting, to enclose the action inside. Not because there is no world outside, but because I am more interested in the interior, which remains unfinished. The words that should have happened in that family came late. For this reason, silence became the only form of communication possible between them. In Montenegro, society rarely encourages understanding, it almost does not know how to articulate pain, everything comes down to bare suffering and that is the only way people maintain order.
The motifs of freedom, guilt, and death are strongly intertwined in “The Birthplace.” In your opinion, is there such a thing as “healthy guilt” – one that leads to responsibility, not paralysis? Also, is a person sometimes more afraid of freedom than of limitations?
I think that “healthy guilt” exists, but it needs to be translated into responsibility, which doesn’t happen, and then the patterns are constantly repeated, which we all witness. That’s why we are used to suffering, adapting, and waiting for things to resolve themselves. Silence is most often interpreted as wisdom, but in reality it is nothing more than avoiding or postponing confrontation. As for freedom, I think that modern man really fears it more than he fears restrictions. Freedom, after all, implies choice, and choice nevertheless carries responsibility, which no one seems to want.
In "The Birthplace" we also come to the realization that "there are many writers, but few heroes." Who is the hero in "The Birthplace" and do heroes exist today? Can the revival of those from the past point us toward the future, or do we need new, true heroes of our time - where can we find them?
That sentence in the novel is not an attack on writers, but rather an attempt to separate visibility from courage. There are indeed many writers today, but writing itself does not produce heroes. In a novel, the hero is the one who remains in the space of responsibility, even when it would be easier to leave or remain silent. That is why I think the hero is precisely the brother. Although he is not morally pure or ideal, he is ready to take on a burden that does not carry any kind of recognition.
As for contemporary society, I think we have been trying to revive heroes from the past for too long, most often without any real connection to the present. These heroes only serve to maintain the myth and nothing more. I believe that we do not need big, monumental heroes today, while we do need almost less visible forms of courage, but I do not see such heroes in the public space, nor in the treatment of the narratives that we celebrate.
The novel was presented as part of the Winter Book Salon "Booka", how does his life develop further?
It was just the first promotion, new releases and conversations are being prepared. For the first time, I'm not thinking about plans and I feel good about it.
Staying in a world of mystery for readers
After “The Minister”, which also reached the American market, and “The Birthplace”, it seems that your prose is increasingly directly dealing with identity, belonging, loss of control, but also with the analysis of modern man. Is writing, as Lana Bastašić says, both a punishment and the only possible way out, and what does it offer you, and what do you pass on to readers, with what expectations or wishes?
“Minister” lives its own life, somehow outside of me. I am glad that it finds its way, in yet another language, in yet another space, but when I finish a work, it in a certain way ceases to be an important part of me. I experience my stories as chapters in life that I put an end to and move on. Lana Bastašić’s idea that writing is both a punishment and the only possible way out is very close to me, but writers most often do not want to talk about it. Still, it is important for us to remain in some kind of world of mystery for the readers. On the other hand, I also cannot offer readers comfort, nor give ready-made answers, because I do not have any for myself. All I can offer them is the feeling that their experiences, no matter how painful, are not isolated, that they exist in others and that they are part of something bigger.
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