The first novel of Stevan Tontić, Your Heart, Bunny; Stories of the Fragmented Novel (Tvoje srce, zeko; priče raskomadanog romana) is going to be published in Autumn 2017, translated to Czech by Mihad Muhanović and Sandra Vlainić.

 

In the form of “fragmented” autobiographic novel of eighteen chapters, each representing also the independent narrative whole, the writer makes his storytelling report about the first year of the war siege of Sarajevo, about his escape from the city, about the short stay in Serbia and finally, about his impressions and experiences in the chosen exile in Berlin…

 

The second situational dimension of the story consists in the number of narrative, meaning existential situations that the main character was the witness of, but that did not concern him immediately. Realized in Andrić’s thematic and stylistic key and Andrić’s literary milieu, those narrative units leave the first impression of some parody-stylization of the great writer, but, in fact, the very reality was perverted, oversized and systematically destroyed while the human being in it was degraded to an animal. However, Tontić’s intentional connection with Andrić is hard to deny: the cover title chapter, as well as the first half of the novel, corresponds thematically and situationally with Andrić’s short-story Zeko (Bunny), as it corresponds anthropologically and characterologically with the number of Andrić’s characters.

 

What is entirely new in Tontić, common to many novel characters, and the object of special author’s attention, is the phenomenon of the mental siege in the majority of the national group, respective the cultural-social and political mimicry in the minority groups. The disease is of epidemic scale and does not know the limits. The virus is 24 hours a day generated by the media propaganda.

 

Besides the common meaningful and higher axiological accomplishments, Tontić’s incorruptible literary testimony puts in question the fixed media image of war in Sarajevo, what makes this novel highly not recommended to certain sort of readers. For the rest, it is one cathartic, sobering, gnoseologically relevant and multiply inspiring book.

 

(The fragments from the Marko Paovica’s review

“The tragic experience of humanity” (“Tragično iskustvo čovečnosti”), Književne novine, 1. 9. 1999)

 

Stevan Tontić, poet, novelist, essayist, anthologist, translator from German, was born in November 30th, 1946 in the village of Grdanovci near Sanski Most. He graduated from the University of Sarajevo in philosophy with sociology. Befor the civil war, he used to work as an editor in the “Svijetlost” publisher. From May 1993 to the end of 2001, he lived in exile in Germany. After that, he went back to Sarajevo, where he lived to 2014, when he finally moved to Novi Sad, where he lives now. Some of his works include: the independent collections of poems such as: The science of Soul and Other Happy Stories (Nauka o duši i druge vesele priče), Sarajevo 1970; I The Secret Correspondence (Tajna prepiska), Sarajevo 1976, Naše gore vuk, Novi Sad 1976, I Curse and I Bless (Hulim i posvećujem), Beograd 1977, Black Mother Sunday (Crna je mati nedjelja), Beograd 1983, Prague (Prag), Sarajevo 1986, Ring, Beograd 1987, Sarajevo Manuscript (Sarajevski rukopis) Beograd 1993, 1998, Moj psalam/My Psalm, Berlin 1997, The Blessing of Exile (Blagoslov izgnanstva), Banja Luka 2001, Sacred and Damned (Sveto i prokleto), Novi Sad 2009, The Everyday's End of the World (Svakodnevni smak svijeta), Beograd 2013. Novels: Tvoje srce, zeko (priče raskomadanog romana), (Your Heart, Bunny; Stories of the Fragmented Novel) Beograd 1998. Tontić is an editor of two anthologies: The Newer Poetry of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo 1990 and The Modern Serbian Poetry, Sarajevo 1991. His poetry is translated to several languages, Czech among them. He is a laureate of the City of Sarajevo Award, and also of the Šantić, Zmaj, Kočić, Antić and other awards in BH and Serbia. In Germany, he was awarded by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts Award and the “Literature in Exile” Award of the city of Heidelberg