Interviste in lingua originale

Interview with Dubravka Ugrešic

English version

Lidia Gualdoni - You wrote the articles collected in your book since 1996 to 2001. In the following five years did anything change in the publishing business? And in your being exiled?

Dubravka Ugrešic - Yes, it did change, for the worse. What concerns my personal case, for the time being I am quite happy living in Amsterdam.

The Italian version of the title - "Vietato leggere" - means that it is forbidden to read. Don't you think that sometimes it would be better forbidden to write?

This is a pun in original, as well as in various translations. Usually, you can hear the phrase "Thank you for not smoking" . I made a pun: "Thank you for not reading". In some other language zones the phrase sounds: "Smoking prohibited". So the pun would be: "Reading prohibited". And to answer your question: yes, sometimes I have such dark fantasies that it would be great if writing is prohibited, like the reading was in Roy Bradbury's novel "Farenheit 451".

In fact, one of your colleague, Stephen Vizinczey, in his "Truth and lies in Literature" wrote that most of the novels published are written by people who can't write and most of the reviews are written by people who can't read. Do you agree?

I do.

In Italy we have all the problems you wrote about. Some of our editors suggest publishing less than before, especially the beginners. Do you think it could be a solution?

There is no solution. Once the book became a product like any other product, the production and the market machines work as they would with any other product.

Editors, writers, critics, readers, the editorial staff with the editorial assistants and agents, scouts, librarians, booksellers … Who is the most culpable?

Uh, difficult to say...

I appreciated your sense of humour and your irony: is this the only way to face all those problems?

Yes, we can only laugh and believe that there are the people in the world who laugh at the same things.

One of the last news in Internet is the "Blog". Some said that every writer will have only one reader: himself. Which is your opinion?

I like the new invention of blog, blogging and bloggers. I met some literary bloggers. All of them were a very nice people. And meeting them was better and more refreshing experience than meeting "traditional" writers.

Would you ever write any "commercial" book if you were sure that it would be a world-wide success?

It would certainly be a temptation. But would I really write it, hum, I don't know...

Italian version

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