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Biljana Kekovic, Dragana Tripkovic, Jelena Nelevic Martinovic, Koret on the Asphalt, Lena Ruth Stefanovic, Tanja Bakic
I’ve been ‘missing in action’ and, besides to Bonnie Cehovet, with whom we are friends even before WP and (thus) keep in touch via other media & social networks, i think i owe you all a long explanation and an excuse…
I didn’t give up on WP, i was trying to post here and there so you’d know i am alive and kicking, as the saying goes, but last couple of months were indeed the craziest period of my life.
I am well, thanks Goodness, but with work, it’s been… Ugh! I’ll try to reconstruct in chronological order what’s been going on (luckily, all are good news, but in full seriousness i hardly had the time to sleep, not to mention other stuff.)
So, firstly, my doctoral thesis is finished, i’ve spent four months in Moscow and by the end of this week i am going there again for the pre-defense. The ‘finish’ nearly killed me i must say, i am used to hard work, but this was too much even for me.
My short story ‘The New Testament’ is included into Dalkey Archive Press’ Best European Fiction series, featured in The New York Times, The Guardian and so on.
You can imagine what excitement surrounded the selection in my native Montenegro, we are a tiny, quite homogeneous nation and when one of us makes an achievement it is celebrated on a national level; long story made short – i spent a month or so giving interviews and answering congratulations letters.
Then, my new collection of poems The Color of Change (link to a review in Montenegrin), illustrated by one of the most renowned contemporary Montenegrin artists, Biljana Kekovic was published and launched.
I was a guest of numerous tv shows, among most popular and region- wide watched being Atlas TV primetime show ‘Signs by the roadside’ hosted by internationally acclaimed novelist and a friend of mine, Ksenija Popovic:
(You can watch the show on youtube, in our language.)
Unrelated to writing engagements, i had the honor to interpret during visits of foreign officials to my country:
on official visit: president of Bulgaria H.E. Mr Rosen Plevneliev in Montenegro, with our head of state H.E. Mr Filip Vujanovic
Last but not the least, with prominent Montenegrin poetess and my dear friend Tanja Bakic, on behalf of Dragana Tripkovic (scroll down for her bio in English) and Jelena Nelevic-Martinovic in Zagreb, Croatia we launched the very first anthology of Montenegrin poetry written by women: Koret on the asphalth (chief editor – Danilo Ivezic, authors: Tanja Bakic, Lena Ruth Stefanovic, Dragana Tripkovic, Jelena Nelevic Martinovicč published by National Association of Montenegrins of Croatia and Skaner Studio, Zagreb 2013.)
Croatian literary critic Darija ZIlic speaking at the launch of Koret on the Asphalt (left to right: Darija Zilic, Tanja Bakic, L.R. Stefanovic, Danilo Ivezic – one of the leaders of Montnegrin Diaspora and the editor of the anthology.)
Our amazing host – Božidar Petrač, president of the Croatian Writers’ Association:
Montenegrin Diaspora – Council of the Montenegrin National Minority in the City of Zagreb and National Association of Montenegrins of Croatia
For your enjoyment, i’d like to end this ‘post up’ with magical verses of Jelena Nelevic Martinovic, which i believe reflects the spirit of numerous Montenegrin female voices, united as one:
“ I am neither the size of my hips,
nor the measurements of my breast,
I am not the color of my eyes
neither am i the perfect ratio
between inches and pounds…
The difference is that I is the one who penetrates,
While off me all the things bounce of.”
J.N.M.
Some of my dearest WP friends, in no particular order:
John, the magician from the Bartolini kitchens
a wise, great and marvelous woman with a camera
and, of course:
