Man, everybody's a *&^%* novelist these days!
New York Times
BELGRADE JOURNAL
Raves for Authors With a Solid Grasp of Serb Atrocities
By NICHOLAS WOOD
Published: January 21, 2005
BELGRADE, Serbia - Milorad Ulemek, a first-time novelist, has been quite a success. In just two weeks, his novel about the war in Bosnia, "Iron Trench," has sold close to 70,000 copies, a record in Serbia, according to the publisher, Mihailo Vojnovic.
While pleased with sales, Mr. Vojnovic, the director of M Books,
concedes that the novel's success may have less do with its content than with its author's notoriety.
Milorad Ulemek is Serbia's most infamous paramilitary soldier, a man who rights groups say was responsible for some the worst atrocities in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990's. He is more commonly known by his nom de guerre, Legija - literally "of the legion," from his time in the French Foreign Legion. He also occasionally adopts the surname Lukovic, which he took from his former wife.
As a nationalist writer, though, he faces some competition. Dr. Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict and the man most wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal, has also written a novel. And just this week, another former president of the Bosnian Serb republic, Biljana Plavsic, who is in a Swedish prison serving a sentence for war crimes, released her book about the war.
While Ms. Plavsic's book is the only one that sheds any light on the
events of the war, it is the other two that have prompted the most
acclaim here. Nationalist admirers of Mr. Ulemek and Dr. Karadzic have declared their works masterpieces of Serbian literature, comparable in style to the works of Albert Camus and James Joyce. Dr. Karadzic's "The Miraculous Chronicle of the Night," published in October, was short-listed for Serbia's top literary award, the Golden Sunflower.
Such comparisons have provoked indignation among more liberal
commentators. Dr. Karadzic, a psychiatrist by profession, is widely
regarded by diplomats and historians as the chief architect of ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia, while Mr. Ulemek is seen as one of the policy's
principal executioners.
Most commentators are agreed on one thing: the rave reviews for bothnovels reflect the near mythic status still accorded here to the
nationalist figures of the 1990's, men who helped tear Yugoslavia apart in wars that killed more than 250,000 people.
Both authors managed to produce their books while on the run from
various authorities. The war crimes tribunal in The Hague believes Dr. Karadzic has been on the move between Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. It is not clear how the manuscript found its way to the publishers.
Mr. Vojnovic says Mr. Ulemek's common law wife passed on the manuscript shortly after he surrendered to the Serbian police last year in Belgrade. A former commander of the Serbian secret police's military branch, the Red Berets, Mr. Ulemek is on trial not for war crimes but for the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was shot and killed outside his office in March 2003.
(...)
Dr. Karadzic's reputation as a writer is more firmly established. "The
Miraculous Chronicle of the Night" is his fourth publication since he
went into hiding in 1996. Other recent works include a children's book, a selection of his poetry and a play. This is his first novel, and is centered on Sarajevo in 1980-81. The hero is an engineer who, like Dr. Karadzic, is sent to prison at the time of Tito's death.
(...)
Critically Acclaimed, Camus-Like Existential
Novelist "Legija":
