Južnjački mentalitet je specifičan, Nišlije su topli i gostoljubivi ljudi, ali su takođe prznice, nestrpljivi, bučni... Naročito je specifičan taj naš humor, koji istovremeno kroji i pogled na život The southern mentality is specific. The people of Niš are warm and hospitable people, but they are also grouchy, impatient, noisy ... Our humour is particularly specific, which also simultaneously shapes our outlook on life
the old Niš dialect was spoken? My paternal grandfather, Vojislav Stojiljković, was an assistant at many Niš taverns before World War II. He lat- er enrolled in the school for non-commissioned officers, participated in the April War, fell into captivity, served as an allied soldier and returned to his hometown – af- ter crossing Hungary on foot. After the war, he was one of the founders of “Niš Express”. It was from him that I heard stories about the old, pre-war Niš. Unfortunate- ly, the wild and unplanned urbanisation of Niš resulted in not much being left of the old buildings and that old Niš. Of that old Niš, all you have today is the so-called Kazandžijsko sokače, part of the old buildings in the cen- tre and the Banovina building, i.e. the university that was built in 1886 by King Milan Obrenović and which is also the most beautiful edifice in Niš. Are we going to read some thriller and chase down a serial killer soon? It seems that you mentioned somewhere a Nesbø-style novel? - Yes, this is a manuscript with the working title ird Face of Darkness. I love that genre, but I haven’t yet tried my hand at it in the right sense. e attempts of local writers to write crime fiction have mostly ended up in the “Serbianising” of certain role models, whether that’s noir or Scandinavian crime fiction in the style of Jo Nes- bø. e thing is that this region is specific enough to have its own authentic crime genre, so it would be easiest for me to tell you that my novel could be the Serbian version of the first season of the HBO series True Detective, but
that’s really not the case. It is a story set in the always “vivid” 1990s, a story about the banality of evil, and the motto I took is one consideration of omas Aquinas: “When you reach the core of evil, you will find nothing”. Your book Ducat for the Boatman is still being read, but a lot is still being cooked up in your Niš kitchen? My first novel in sequels, which is called Tower, will soon be published on the BookMate service. It is a story similar to Stephen King’s e Shining and the very pop- ular current series Haunting of Hill House and Haunt- ing of Bly Manor. It was partly inspired by real-world events. Specifically, on the outskirts of Niš is a block of buildings that were constructed on a cemetery for soldiers from World War I. e residents of that settlement have for decades been recounting scary stories about the ap- pearances of the ghosts of soldiers who were buried un- der the foundations. I’m also planning for them a short series about Mustafa Golubić, and then, if everything goes as it should, I will write a new short novel, a sci-fi parody of the Socialist Federal Yugoslavia and the cult of Comrade Tito. Another idea is related to the story of Heinrich Kahn, one of the heroes of Constantine’s Cross- roads, and his African mission. at novel, or novella, is entitled Fields of the Nephilim. By the end of the year, my parent publisher Laguna will publish my new collec- tion of stories under the title Neon Blues, which will be followed by a special, Cyrillic-script edition of Ducat for the Boatman, and then a novel about Branko Miljković.
My Niš » Moj Niš | 83
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