Sizifova sreća - razgovori, kronike
Ivan Lovrenović's collection documents thirty years of change in Bosnia and Herzegovina through interviews, essays, and dialogues. The author, a witness to the era, examines old attitudes in the new reality, emphasizing the atrophy of rationality and soci
The book, divided into four parts, exudes resignation, suspicion and self-irony, criticizing ideologies, nationalisms and historical ruptures without being apodictic.
Part One: We are powerful in evil. Six interviews (1989–2018) on war, genocide, nationalism and culture. Lovrenović discusses Sarajevo, the divisions of Herzegovina, the role of intellectuals and the media in propaganda, highlighting the "power of evil" in the Yugoslav breakup.
Part Two: The Land of Cemeteries. Chronicles from 2015–2016, short essays on the Bosnian past: "The Legend of Enver Čolaković", "Two Herzegovinian Croats", "God-Seekers Thirsting for Violence", "Milorad Ekmečić: 'We Look at the Future Through Darkness'", "The War for Language", "The Fake Writer Meša Selimović", "Serbian Mostar", "Sarajevo – a Muslim City?", "Radovan Karadžić's Peaceful Conscience". Focus on memory, crimes and identity.
Part Three: Dialogue. A conversation with Enver Kazaz (2009), inspired by Roger Bacon: "The soul cannot rest in truth until the body is burned in the fire of experience". A profound discussion of literature, history and ethics in the post-Yugoslav chaos. Part Four: Contributions. Texts by other authors and Lovrenović's comments that complement previous topics, such as analyses of genocide and cultural taboos.
The book as a Sisyphean task: pushing the stone of truth uphill again, celebrating happiness in the futility of resistance to evil.
One copy is available
