Aleksandar Hemon: ‘It’s the end of America. They just don’t know it yet’
Interview: The Bosnian-American writer’s new novel is a comedy with tragedy at its heart: the main characters have all been destroyed by state-sponsored conflicts
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/aleksandar-hemon-it-s-the-end-of-america-they-just-don-t-know-it-yet-1.2411564
"It’s not every day you read a novel that moves effortlessly between references to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, eruptions of the crazed undead, a po-faced TV image of George Bush, sidewinding literary references – “Did the Wife of Bath drink soy milk chai lattes?” – and a joke that begins: “John Wayne goes to Sarajevo . . .”
The Making of Zombie Wars, the new novel from the Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon, doesn’t so much move as whizz the reader from the heights of creative whimsy to the depths of human tragedy – and back again – with barely time to draw breath.
The story begins as Hemon’s central character, Joshua Levin, is attending a screenwriting workshop, where his best effort at a screenplay is the eponymous Zombie Wars. The text of this fledgling movie (in which people who irritate Joshua tend to get eaten by zombies) is woven through the novel, as are the high-concept film pitches that Josh obsessively notes down in his laptop, like attacks of narrative hiccups.
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Has he ever. “The Bush years?” he begins. “The damage is just immeasurable. The destruction is enormous. And what is even more damaging is the inability to address that in its fundamentals. This perpetuation of denial of the facts, including the fact that the United States is no longer a superpower. It has failed miserably. Part of the point of the Iraq war was to assert American power and its right and ability to fix things around the world, and they’ve f***ed it up beyond any measure. Plus, no one has paid any price for that. None. Never mind jail and torture and extraordinary rendition and all that: just, ‘Do you know what you’ve done, Mr Rumsfeld?’ None whatsoever.”
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Hemon is an incredible author, and this interview is fantastic. Please give it a read.
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