Bosniak - Writer | September 9, 1964 -
I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.
Aleksandar Hemon
LifeHomeLiveOld FriendsParents
I cannot stand that whole game of confession, that is: Here I have sinned, now I'm confessing my sins, and describing my path of sin and then in the act of confession I beg for your forgiveness and redemption.
ForgivenessPathGameStandSinNow
I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability - the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.
LoveWaitCareEverythingExistence
When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosnia, I read for survival - it was a means of thought resuscitation.
MyselfWarThoughtSurvivalSwing
I like to blur the line between fact and fiction, but not to condescend to the reader by enmeshing her/him into some sort of a postmodern coop.
BlurLineFictionLikeBetweenFact
For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house, it was to salvage photos.
LifePeopleStoryYouBackHouse
I resist when someone calls me a novelist: it implies some kind of inherent superiority of the novel. I'm not a novelist, I'm a writer.
MeSomeoneKindSuperiorityResist
Memory narrativises itself.
MemoryItself
I really don't feel that any of the pieces I wrote were confessions; there are no revelations about secrets in my life, and actually I have nothing to confess and I certainly do not ask for redemption and there is no reward for confessing that I expect.
LifeFeelMy LifeRewardSecrets
Our daughter was born in Chicago, and she's already showing it. The temperature has to be approaching zero for her to wear a hat.
DaughterHatBornChicagoSheWear
When we're upset, our vocal cords tighten and we can't speak. And when I lie - well, I can't lie, because the same thing happens - everyone who knows me knows that when I start squeaking, I've started lying.
LieMeStartSpeakLyingUpset
I tend to wait for true stories to mature into fiction. Most of my fiction grew out of a long-germinating real-life situation.
WaitSituationTrueMatureOutMost
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