On Sunday, July 21st, starting at 9PM, this year’s literary programme is to continue at “Poets’ Square”. The guest of the evening will be Zoran Paunović, a professor, translator and essayist. He will present to the audience his latest novel titled: Bob Dylan: The Poetics of an Outlaw.
Zoran Paunović is a full professor for the narrow area of language studies that is English and American literature, at the Faculty of Philosophy (Novi Sad) and the Faculty of Philology (Belgrade). He is the author of four novels and more than a hundred scientific and professional works, as well thirty literary translations from English. For his work in the area of translation he has received important awards and recognitions (amongst others the awards “Miloš N. Ðurić” and “Laza Kostić”). He has held lectures upon invitation in the USA, Great Britain, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Paunović has been the vice-president of the Serbian “Pen” Centre since 2010 and accepted the position of a vice-dean for International Cooperation and Science at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in two mandates (2010-2016). The same position he has been holding at the Faculty of Philosophy (Novi Sad) since May, 2017. He was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts in 2018.
On the website of the Clio publishing house, the following is stated: Bob Dylan: The Poetics of an Outlaw is a critical overview of a life and artistic achievements of the artist that has left a prominent mark on the culture of America and the world in general. Whilst having been able to achieve all this, Dylan was also capable of preserving his reputation of a perpetual outlaw, ready to act contrary to expectations instilled upon him due to his unchanged global cultural icon status. Not concerning himself with piling up redundant details and information, in his novel Paunović occupies himself with those events, characters and phenomena that were crucial in Dylan’s forming as an artist. The novel also singles out the most important moments of his long and rich career: his coming to New York together with his first performances and early affirmation in Greenwich Village, leaning towards the area of the so-called “countercultural songs” and consequently leaving it, dismissing the folk purity and obtaining the status of a rock star, the artistic creativeness that reached its boiling point in the sixties and was at a standstill in the eighties, converting to Christianity and thus accepting a certain kind of a preacher role, his breaking away from and reconciliation with his muses (real and metaphorical ones), physical and spiritual crisis and recuperation, his values as an artist being denied at one moment and at the other acknowledged, all the way to receiving the Nobel Prize and further afield.
The moderator for the evening is Zoran Hamović, the founder, director and editor-in-chief of the CLIO publishing company. He is also a member of the Professional Publishers of Serbia’s Association.
Theatre programme
That same night at 9PM , in the venue Between Churches, one will have a chance to witness the rerun of the play Radovan the Third. It is the play by Dušan Kovačević, dramatized by Vesna Radovanović and directed by Vito Taufer. The play ,which came to be on the 50th anniversary of the original text, has already had its premiere during the XXXVIII “Theatre City” festival. It is the co-production of the “Theatre City” Budva and the Sombor National Theatre. On this particular occasion, it will have been performed for the twenty-fifth time since its premiere at the last year’s “Theatre City” festival.
Along with the director Vito Taufer, and Vesna Radovanović who stands behind the dramatization, the authorial team of the play entails: Lazar Bodroža (scenographer), Biljana Grgur (costume design), Robert Pešut-Manjifiko and Aleksandar Pešut-Shatz (the original music for the play).
Cast: Ninoslav Ðorđević, Biljana Keskenović, Marija Maša Labudović, Danica Grubački, Srđan Aleksić, Nemanja Bakić, Lazar Nikolić and Pavle Popović.
The “Theatre City” Press-Office