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CONVERSATIONS: Book of Interviews
The interviews in this book are selected pieces originally published in Viewpoints (Pogledi), the first opposition magazine in the former Yugoslavia, from 1990 to 1992, when the magazine reached its peak circulation of 200,000 copies. The author served as the magazine's foreign correspondent from Chicago, beginning in 1990, while it continued to be published in its original form.
The book is divided into three Chicago, Paris, and Belgrade. The original order in the Serbian edition, published in Belgrade in 1999, was Belgrade, Paris, and Chicago, reflecting the order in which the interviews were conducted.
For the English edition, we reordered the sections to start with Chicago since some interviews, including those with Saul Bellow and Charles Simic, were conducted in English. This strategy allows English readers to connect with these interviews and authors while also acknowledging their significance.
In the Chicago section of the book, there are interviews with Saul Bellow (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1976), Charles Simic (winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry), and Steve Tesich, a 1979 Academy Award-winning author known for the screenplay of the movie Breaking Away, among others.
Interviews in Belgrade occurred at the beginning and throughout 1990. In Paris, interviews were conducted from April to June 1990. The Chicago interviews took place in 1991 (Charles Simic) and early 1992. The interview with Steve Tesich happened at the Chicago Goodman Theatre on two once at the end of 1991 and again at the start of 1992 (both in winter). The interview with Saul Bellow was held in early 1992 at his office at the University of Chicago.
The Belgrade and Paris interviews took place a year before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, which began in 1991. These interviews reveal that, while the Communist “ideal” of brotherhood among all the people of the former Yugoslavia held a promise to preserve it as a “pupil of the eye,” some intellectuals feared and acknowledged that the breakup would be inevitable.
Meanwhile, many people in the former Yugoslavia lived under the Communist illusion that everything would be fine and that the old order, in some form, would be preserved. Still, most of the population understood and sensed that the old system would be gone for good, even though they dreaded the worst scenarios that might follow. This is exactly what transpired in the subsequent years, marking the breakup of what had once been a strong and internationally significant Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia played a pivotal role during the Cold War between the East and the West due to its neutral stance and its significant position as a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was formed shortly after the Korean War.[1] The Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito was one of the founding political figures, alongside Jawaharlal Nehru (India) and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was Egypt's second president from 1954 to 1970.
This book highlights the importance and potential dangers inherent in the complexities and peculiarities of history, as well as the actions of political figures and the risks posed by the mistakes of political actors on all sides. This is especially significant if those mistakes undermine the primary duty of political leaders to serve the people they represent.
[1] The Korean War occurred from June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953.
The book is divided into three Chicago, Paris, and Belgrade. The original order in the Serbian edition, published in Belgrade in 1999, was Belgrade, Paris, and Chicago, reflecting the order in which the interviews were conducted.
For the English edition, we reordered the sections to start with Chicago since some interviews, including those with Saul Bellow and Charles Simic, were conducted in English. This strategy allows English readers to connect with these interviews and authors while also acknowledging their significance.
In the Chicago section of the book, there are interviews with Saul Bellow (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1976), Charles Simic (winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry), and Steve Tesich, a 1979 Academy Award-winning author known for the screenplay of the movie Breaking Away, among others.
Interviews in Belgrade occurred at the beginning and throughout 1990. In Paris, interviews were conducted from April to June 1990. The Chicago interviews took place in 1991 (Charles Simic) and early 1992. The interview with Steve Tesich happened at the Chicago Goodman Theatre on two once at the end of 1991 and again at the start of 1992 (both in winter). The interview with Saul Bellow was held in early 1992 at his office at the University of Chicago.
The Belgrade and Paris interviews took place a year before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, which began in 1991. These interviews reveal that, while the Communist “ideal” of brotherhood among all the people of the former Yugoslavia held a promise to preserve it as a “pupil of the eye,” some intellectuals feared and acknowledged that the breakup would be inevitable.
Meanwhile, many people in the former Yugoslavia lived under the Communist illusion that everything would be fine and that the old order, in some form, would be preserved. Still, most of the population understood and sensed that the old system would be gone for good, even though they dreaded the worst scenarios that might follow. This is exactly what transpired in the subsequent years, marking the breakup of what had once been a strong and internationally significant Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia played a pivotal role during the Cold War between the East and the West due to its neutral stance and its significant position as a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was formed shortly after the Korean War.[1] The Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito was one of the founding political figures, alongside Jawaharlal Nehru (India) and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was Egypt's second president from 1954 to 1970.
This book highlights the importance and potential dangers inherent in the complexities and peculiarities of history, as well as the actions of political figures and the risks posed by the mistakes of political actors on all sides. This is especially significant if those mistakes undermine the primary duty of political leaders to serve the people they represent.
[1] The Korean War occurred from June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953.
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Published June 15, 2025
About the author
Dejan Stojanovic
78 books138 followersDejan Stojanovic was born in Pec, Kosovo (the former Yugoslavia), in 1959. Although a lawyer by education, he has never practiced law and instead became a journalist. He is a poet, essayist, philosopher, former journalist, and businessman.
Books of poetry: Circling, The Sun Watches the Sun, The Sign and Its Children, The Shape, The Creator, Dance of Time, THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS (A PENTALOGY) - [Ozar, The World and God, The World in Nowhereness, The World and Humans, The Home of Light]. The Hidden Light, Primordial Spark, Centuries and Steps.
Books of Essays: Creator and Creating, The New Man and the New World.
Anthology: Selected Serbian Plays.
Philosophy: Absolute.
In 1986, as a young writer, he was recognized among 200 writers at the Bor (former Yugoslavia) Literary Festival. He also received the prestigious Rastko Petrovic Award from the Society of Serbian Writers for his book of interviews with major European and American artists and writers.
In addition to poetry and prose, he has worked as a correspondent for the Serbian weekly magazine Pogledi (Views). His book of interviews from 1990 to 1992 in Europe and America, entitled Conversations, included interviews with several major American writers, including Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, Charles Simic, and Steve Tesic.
He has been living in Chicago since 1990.
THEY SAID ABOUT THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS
“(The World in Nowhereness offers) the joy of cognition due to discoveries worthy of the Nobel prize…”
— Milan Lukić
"When I got my hands on Dejan Stojanović's book The World in Nowhereness, I was amazed and read the book with great pleasure. I didn't even believe that there is someone today who could write such a long poem, an epic, as if I opened to read the Iliad, in our time. I recommend this book to all who are believers in poetry because faith in poetry is the same as faith in eternity and eternal life."
— Matija Bećković
“The World in Nowhereness is Dejan Stojanović’s utopian absolute book, a kind of a Mallarméan absolute. An absolute story, or an absolute book, according to Borges, is a desert-like book: sandy, grainily unforeseeable, and corpuscularly innumerable… It is simultaneously a vision and a chimera. Isn’t that precisely why we long for an absolute book? The World in Nowhereness by Dejan Stojanović is, in his way, an embodiment of that dream.”
— Srba Ignjatović
“I have always wondered, even about my poetic work, what a total poem is… Can the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović be called a total poem, one that every poet of note has dreamed about since the time of Homer? I felt such impulses while reading The World in Nowhereness. This is an absolute poem, of an absolute system of thought that reaches across the totality of our civilizational legacies.”
— Duško Novaković
"Exactly 17 years ago, in the last year of the 20th century, I came across the work of Dejan Stojanović, and then I wrote a text from which I will extract a few sentences. “Dejan Stojanović, in the last two years, made a real feat, he published six books, except for one, all books of poetry.” This first five-book collection was published in the last year of the 20th century, and here we are now with the five-book collection in the XXI century, nearing the end of the second decade. And then I also wrote the following: “Stojanović is a poet who searches for the perfect poetic form because at the same time he searches for the absolute meaning of human existence.” Whether it was a hunch or not, there is the Pentalogy and there is that word, that concept – an absolute, an absolute book, an absolute poem that could be sensed even in that first pentalogy."
— Aleksandar Petrov (January 17, 2018)
"The World in Nowhereness is primarily the result of great literary ambition and faith in l
Books of poetry: Circling, The Sun Watches the Sun, The Sign and Its Children, The Shape, The Creator, Dance of Time, THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS (A PENTALOGY) - [Ozar, The World and God, The World in Nowhereness, The World and Humans, The Home of Light]. The Hidden Light, Primordial Spark, Centuries and Steps.
Books of Essays: Creator and Creating, The New Man and the New World.
Anthology: Selected Serbian Plays.
Philosophy: Absolute.
In 1986, as a young writer, he was recognized among 200 writers at the Bor (former Yugoslavia) Literary Festival. He also received the prestigious Rastko Petrovic Award from the Society of Serbian Writers for his book of interviews with major European and American artists and writers.
In addition to poetry and prose, he has worked as a correspondent for the Serbian weekly magazine Pogledi (Views). His book of interviews from 1990 to 1992 in Europe and America, entitled Conversations, included interviews with several major American writers, including Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, Charles Simic, and Steve Tesic.
He has been living in Chicago since 1990.
THEY SAID ABOUT THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS
“(The World in Nowhereness offers) the joy of cognition due to discoveries worthy of the Nobel prize…”
— Milan Lukić
"When I got my hands on Dejan Stojanović's book The World in Nowhereness, I was amazed and read the book with great pleasure. I didn't even believe that there is someone today who could write such a long poem, an epic, as if I opened to read the Iliad, in our time. I recommend this book to all who are believers in poetry because faith in poetry is the same as faith in eternity and eternal life."
— Matija Bećković
“The World in Nowhereness is Dejan Stojanović’s utopian absolute book, a kind of a Mallarméan absolute. An absolute story, or an absolute book, according to Borges, is a desert-like book: sandy, grainily unforeseeable, and corpuscularly innumerable… It is simultaneously a vision and a chimera. Isn’t that precisely why we long for an absolute book? The World in Nowhereness by Dejan Stojanović is, in his way, an embodiment of that dream.”
— Srba Ignjatović
“I have always wondered, even about my poetic work, what a total poem is… Can the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović be called a total poem, one that every poet of note has dreamed about since the time of Homer? I felt such impulses while reading The World in Nowhereness. This is an absolute poem, of an absolute system of thought that reaches across the totality of our civilizational legacies.”
— Duško Novaković
"Exactly 17 years ago, in the last year of the 20th century, I came across the work of Dejan Stojanović, and then I wrote a text from which I will extract a few sentences. “Dejan Stojanović, in the last two years, made a real feat, he published six books, except for one, all books of poetry.” This first five-book collection was published in the last year of the 20th century, and here we are now with the five-book collection in the XXI century, nearing the end of the second decade. And then I also wrote the following: “Stojanović is a poet who searches for the perfect poetic form because at the same time he searches for the absolute meaning of human existence.” Whether it was a hunch or not, there is the Pentalogy and there is that word, that concept – an absolute, an absolute book, an absolute poem that could be sensed even in that first pentalogy."
— Aleksandar Petrov (January 17, 2018)
"The World in Nowhereness is primarily the result of great literary ambition and faith in l
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