Genocide, Literature, and the role of the intelligensia

[Carvill John]

Taking the recent discussion back towards literature, and toucing on the issue raised by Michael Bailey - i.e. were all Serbs bad, weren't there artists, professors, etc. who decried Milosevic? - here's a very good article on Alexsander Hemon, Sarajevan author living in Chicago.
 
The book of stories being discussed here, Question of Bruno, is indeed very good. BUt the subsequent novel, 'Noewhere Man' is, imho, much better. I;ve recommended it on the p-list before, but I don't think that got picked up on.
 
"Brave new words
 
Alexander Hemon arrived in Chicago, a refugee from Sarajevo, speaking only tourist English. Now, a master of the language, he's being hailed as the 'new 
Nabokov'. How did he do it, asks Julian Borger
 
[...]
 
At the University of Sarajevo, Aleksandar Hemon had an English professor who introduced him to the great works of world literature. And, as time went by, the aspiring young writer would present his own efforts to the great man, who, in turn, was only too happy to nurture his favourite student. Professor Nikola Koljevic taught Hemon just about everything he knew about the world of letters, but his most important lesson - and the most devastating - came later. 
 
When the killing started in the former Yugoslavia, the erudite and admired professor took up the banner of the most bloodthirsty killers. 
 
Koljevic, a Shakespeare specialist, became Radovan Karadzic's smooth-tongued deputy in the Serb Democratic Party and helped run the ethnic-cleansing machine in Bosnia. He spent the war laughing off reports of massacres, smiling as he denied the existence of death camps. And, in a twist Shakespeare himself would have appreciated, Koljevic the man of letters masterminded the bombing of Sarajevo's revered library. 

[...]
 
Then, one winter's day in January 1997, the great Koljevic shot himself in the head. In fact, he shot himself twice in the head - a feat that led many to wonder about the official verdict of suicide. But, either way, his days as a Shakespearean authority were over. "
 
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/apr/08/fiction.features
 
 
 
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