2024-03-13 10:57:07
Normally a writer prefers to talk about his new book, especially if it is about his Great work acts. Aleksandar Hemon, the American writer from Bosnia, worked on his latest novel for around 13 years. “The world and everything it contains” is a 400-page refugee epic that takes its hero Rafael Pinto, a gay, Jewish pharmacist from Sarajevo, from the battlefields of the First World War through the turmoil of the Russian Civil War across Asia to Shanghai in the 1930s and 40s. A story of the century, a modern odyssey. So there is a lot to ask and answer about this. But Hemon prefers to talk about DJing, DJing, and turntables, which he practices on every day.
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Hemon is not a normal writer; and what should that be: normality in literature? We meet on Karl-Marx-Strasse in Berlin-Neukölln, the atmosphere of which fits quite well with the multilingual, multi-ethnic character of Hemon’s stories. Hemon is late, for which he apologizes profusely; he had to drive his daughter to riding lessons unplanned. He has lived nearby with his wife and two daughters (twelve and 16) since August, on the other side of the Hasenheide. Hemon, 59, who has been teaching creative writing at Princeton for several years, is currently spending a sabbatical year in Berlin.
His everyday life here is radically different from his usual campus routine, which forces him into his office every day, even when he doesn’t have classes or is on vacation. Hemon can do without this official-like normality – not uncommon for American writers, even Nabokov taught at Cornell for a long time. Berlin means relaxation: “I don’t have to leave Berlin with more than I brought here.” He spends his time with small texts, book PR in different countries, but above all with DJing, one of the main reasons for his stay. “In Berlin, DJs are what actors are in Los Angeles.” However, we haven’t heard much about the nightlife in Princeton.
DJ set after dinner
We go to lunch Café Rix at the Heimathafen cultural center. Hemon orders Tunisian couscous with merguez. In between he still has to make a phone call; The Wi-Fi in the guest apartment is disrupted, “a small crisis,” says Hemon: There is no delay in fixing it, as the younger daughter has special needs and is doing distance learning via Zoom. The time is really difficult for her; she has no friends here. The older one, on the other hand, is enthusiastic about Berlin, she goes to an American school and wants to stay here for another year.
During the day, Hemon and his wife take turns looking after the younger children; due to the time difference, school doesn’t start until the afternoon. After the family dinner – Hemon likes to cook – there is often a DJ. He converted his desk into a DJ booth. “Our neighbors often complained.” Twice a week he is allowed to practice for a few hours during the day with professional equipment in the Holzmarkt, the large club complex on the Spree, and “really turn it up.”
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During the pandemic, Hemon started producing music, contacted an old bandmate from Sarajevo and exchanged tracks. “Back then I thought I would go crazy if I didn’t do something. The Princeton campus was dead like a zombie movie. This is how I got into DJing step by step. Not that that’s the only kind of music I like. But I’m into clubbing, especially in Berlin. And I’m just a curious person and always want to improve.”
What connects writing and performing? Hemon emphasizes the differences: There is this idea of writing in complete isolation, where in the end a book is thrown into the world “like a message in a bottle” that – perhaps – finds an addressee. That’s how he imagined it for a long time. “But if that’s the only way literature is supposed to work, then it bores me.” A DJ creates “temporary conditions for people to have fun. I like watching people dance and I think it’s great that I make her dance.” He also loved writing his novel for 13 years. But he is too old to be “alone in my head” for another 13 years.
Film was Hemon’s first attempt to live art as a collective activity. In Chicago he met the Wachowskis – Lana and Lilly, who are now sisters after coming out as transgender – and worked on series. For “Matrix Resurrections” (2021), the sequel to the epochal cinema trilogy, Hemon wrote the script together with Lana Wachowski and his “closest writer friend” David Mitchell, the author of “Cloud Atlas”. The trio met several times for weeks to work together on the storyline and distributed the scenes to be worked out.
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There were also occasional collaborations on books. For “Lazarus” he worked with a photographer and went on a research trip with him; the images give the story of exile and flight a universal dimension. Songs in “The World and Everything It Contains” have a similar function; They connect the protagonists wandering through a distant, hostile world with their longed-for place, Sarajevo, the lost pre-war homeland that has long only existed in their memories. While working, Hemon contacted Bosnian musician Damir Imamović, who recorded an album of traditional Bosnian folk music inspired by the novel of the same title.
At first glance, the historical adventure material differs from earlier works, which varied its origin story in a postmodern, playful way: Hemon, born in Sarajevo in 1964, grew up in Yugoslavia. At the age of 27 he received a scholarship to the USA. A few weeks after his arrival in Chicago in early 1992, the Bosnian war broke out and his hometown, which had been under siege for years, became synonymous with its horror. Hemon, who stayed in the United States and became an English-language writer there in record time, has repeatedly talked about this conflict and the refugee’s homelessness. But the protagonists of the new book, Rafael Pinto and his Muslim comrade and lover Osman, are also moving further and further away from their homeland. The action-packed plot conceals a deep reflection on the hopelessness of history and the liberating power of storytelling.
Guardian angels are real
Should “The World and Everything It Contains” be turned into a film? The crucial difference between the film and the novel is that language does not play a major role in the script. “What is in the script must be visible. The most beautiful poetic language becomes meaningless here. Literature is the only art form that truly has access to another person’s consciousness. You can’t film thinking.” In the novel, Hemon resorts to the trick of having Rafael accompanied by his spirit after Osman’s disappearance, who intervenes to save him like a guardian angel.
For Hemon, this is not fantastic. Although he himself is an “atheist”; But he believes that the many reports from people in exceptional situations who actually experience the presence of a deceased person are true. For him, the beauty of the human spirit lies in this ability to create another person in times of extreme need. “That’s much better than a god who just happens to appear somewhere.” Despite all the darkness, his novel tells the story of the triumph of humanism over the false promises of religion.
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Hemon doesn’t have a new writing project right now, at least not one that’s ready to be written. “When I have a book idea, I always try to talk myself out of it, sometimes for years. I’m looking for reasons why I do it not should do: ‘Nobody cares, it doesn’t work’ and so on. I’m in this phase right now. But if I don’t succeed, then music will be a central part of it. We’ll record stuff to accompany the book.”
Hemon already has the car keys in his hand; He has to get on the highway to a meeting in Braunschweig, where he is supposed to provide the music for an artist friend’s installation. Previously we talked about this scandalous disparity between art and the world, the supposed ineffectiveness of novels in the face of real horrors, especially of our time. What’s the point of art and literature anyway?
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Before he has to leave, Hemon tells the story of a friend who once worked as a doctor in besieged Sarajevo. One day she called him on a satellite phone in Chicago and he asked what she was doing. She was on her way to a film screening – under sniper fire. “I asked, ‘Which film?’ She said ‘Terminator 2’. She risked her life to see Terminator 2!” Creating things, says Hemon, is a deeply human urge. And their presence changes something in the world. “There are people who write political commentaries, others can cure cancer. I can create things. Will they help anyone? Perhaps. But in order for them to help, they have to exist at all.”
Whether it’s a novel, a film or a successful DJ set is secondary. What is crucial is the collective experience of art, of community. At the end of the novel, after long words of thanks, there is, somewhat surprisingly, the sentence “And now we dance.” I tell Hemon that I would have thought that was a nice metaphor before the conversation. Aleksandar Hemon laughs and says: “It’s an order.”
Biography: When Aleksandar Hemon flew to Chicago from his hometown Sarajevo for a scholarship at the beginning of 1992 as a 27-year-old, he had no idea that it would be the beginning of a new life. The Bosnian War broke out at the beginning of April and the siege of Sarajevo began, which lasted for several years. Hemon remained in exile and became an English-language writer there. His debut “The Thing with Bruno” was released in 2000. With novels inspired by his own refugee fate, such as “Nowhere Man” (2002) and “Lazarus” (2008), he became one of the most important post-migrant authors in the USA. Together with Lana Wachowski and David Mitchell he wrote the screenplay for “The Matrix Resurrections” (2021). He is a professor of creative writing at Princeton. His novel has just been published “The world and everything it contains” (Claassen Verlag, 26 Euro).
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In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
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