An interested and numerous audience at the 19th International Podgorica Book Fair attended the promotion of the novel Gods Die Stupidly, by journalist Srdana Kosovic, held as part of the "Conversation with the Author" program, moderated by Petra Arbutin.
In front of numerous visitors, Kosović spoke about the creation of the novel, the socio-cultural motifs that served as inspiration, but also the challenges that accompanied the writing process.
"I didn't have a very precise idea when I started writing. It all started one evening when my wife told me there was a competition for unpublished novels. I replied that I would write a novel too. I have thousands of newspaper articles behind me, but I had never thought about writing a novel," Kosović said.
What began as an inside joke among family members and friends quickly grew into a serious literary endeavor.
"When I got back from work that day, I didn't go to sleep. Instead, I sat down and started writing. I placed my main character in an environment where I could imagine him, without a clear idea of what would happen to him. I put him on a train and after a few chapters he arrives in Montenegro, is caught up in a pandemic, and everything continues to develop. I felt like I didn't have complete control over what was happening to him," Kosović recalled.
Speaking about the difficulties, Kosović highlighted the change in style as one of the biggest obstacles.
"One of the things that troubled me in the writing process was how to get out of what I was used to writing – journalism, commentary, analysis, classic newspaper articles – and cross into an unfamiliar narrative space, like when I first encountered journalism almost fifteen years ago, after studying political science," the author said.
The central motif of the novel, according to Kosović, is deception – both of others and of oneself.
"Ultimately, we often have examples of starting to believe our own propaganda. We have been in a story and narrative for so long that we can no longer convince ourselves that what we started with was actually false," Kosović explained.
In addition to the theme of deception and self-deception, the author also touched on the issue of authority and its transformative power, which in the novel is connected to the protagonist's perception of political reality.
"We had events in the context of the political situation that we cannot even imagine, nor could they be repeated in the next hundred years. The main character then finds himself in a unique, unrepeatable situation and recognizes it. He says to himself: 'I am not letting go of what I have managed to grasp' and moves on, regardless of where it will take him," concluded Kosović.
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