The literary program of the 37thTheatre City Festival ended last night at the Poets’ Square with the guest appearance of Mirjana Novaković, who spoke about her novel “Peace and Peace”, which was shortlisted for NIN award.
The moderator of the evening was Petra Bjelica, literary critic, Shakespeare scholar and theater creator. She said that the literary work of Mirjana Novaković can be classified in the domain of postmodern literature, which deals with the themes of instability or the absence of a source of value.
One of the important themes of the novel is the one that is called the possibility of changing one’s social position, Novaković said.
Bjelica said that in the works of Mirjana Novaković you can find the influences of Dostojevski, Andrić, Crnjanski, Man and Kafka, and Novaković said that in her youth she loved Dostojevski very much and that this changed later.
Novaković emphasized that art is the only thing in the world that we can be sure is a lie.
“Art is one hundred percent a lie. When you read something in the newspaper it can be a lie or it can be the truth. You watch something on TV just like that. But literature, film or drama is a hundred percent lie, you have nothing to think about it. At the same time, it’s the most honest thing out there because it doesn’t try to trick you, to tell you something from the real world and tell you that it’s true or it’s not, and because it’s not, it makes you wonder why it is presented that way.”
The goal of the novel “Peace and Peace” is to bear witness to the history of time, she added.
“Theatre City” press service