Hemon Q&A

The main character of Nowhere Man, Jozef Pronek, who you introduced in The Question of Bruno in the longest story, and who most readers seemed to consider your alter ego. Is that a fair assessment? And does that role change/grow/collapse in the this book?

Well, depends what you mean by alter ego. If that means me, under cover, then no. If that means that the life of Pronek is my life, then no. If that means that Pronek's life is the life I could have lived, but didn't, then yes. But in the end, all literature, or at least all fiction is about lives that could have been lived, even if they were just lived.in the new book, Pronek's life is expanded, to the extent that it is narrated from several positions, including some that have nothing to do with him.

What does the title, Nowhere Man, mean?

He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view, knows not where he's going to. Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man, please listen, you don't know what you missing. Nowhere man, the world is at your command etc.

There are two major locales in your writing and in your life, Sarajevo and Chicago. Much has been made of you as a Sarajevan, and of your kinship to Kis and other Balkan/Eastern European writers (Schulz, Kafka, Babel). Do you feel a similar literary kinship with Chicagoans & "Chicago writers" -- Bellow, Algren, Terkel...?

No, not yet. I like Terkel a lot, and he is my neighbor, but the city that he wrote about the city that was before my time, though I need to know what the history was. Algren, I respect, because he is a writer who left a mark in the city -- and I mean literally, as everybody knows the bars he went to and streets that he walked. But I cannot pass the first few pages of his books, as of now. The only Bellow book I like, and I like it a lot -- it is by far his best book -- is The Adventures of Augie March. Other Bellow books are set in Chicago, if they are, mainly because Chicago becomes the symbol of the decay of civilization. Bellow has said many nasty things about the city, from his lofty point. My Chicago is the fresh-immigrant Chicago. The Chicago writer I like the most is Stuart Dybek, particularly childhood and other neighborhoods.

Or with other American or international writers roughly of your generation? Who & how?

I am good friends with Nathan Englander, and I like his book a lot. He has a story-telling talent that is peculiarly Eastern-European with its mixture of horror and absurdity, humor and depth. I like Myla Goldberg, too. She is very precise and patient, which is a great asset for a young writer. She is also a friend. I root for my friends.

And there is Semezdin Mehmedinovic, the Bosnian poet, who is a good, wise friend and an incredible poet, capable of raising the trickiest questions with the lightest of touches.

With The Question of Bruno, much was made of English not being your native Language, and of the book sort of documenting your relationship to the Language. Was this fair/appropriate do you think? And with your second book Ñ you having spent several more years in the U.S. Ñ is it still relevant?

Nabokov said that Lolita as his making love with the English language. The Question of Bruno was some heavy petting with the English language. Now that we are both aroused, all kinds of things can happen. The fact of the matter is that any book should document the writer's relationship with his or her language Ñ if it fails to do so, it fails as a book. Books are made of language, not of characters' psychology or page-turning devices.

Publishing a first book is often the first time a writer gets a sense of who his audience is. Do you write with an audience in mind?

I write for audiences Ñ I would hope there would be many. But all of those fine people are readers, which means that they at some level approach the book at an unpredictable level, which cannot be controlled by the writer, or manipulated by marketing or organized into book clubs. And those moments, when my book opens up something in the other person, something that I had no way of knowing it ever existed, that is the reward I get (apart from checkies) for writing.

Any idea what's next, after Nowhere Man?

Oh I don't know. A book about spies, with a lot of exciting events, a rollercoaster ride of sex and intrigue.