Writer’s choice of dialogues - “Dialogues in Montenegro”

Writer Nedžad Ibrahimović, holding a PhD in literature, is also a poet, literary and film critic, scenarist and author of documentaries. He wanted to describe the artistic value of the Dialogues in Montenegro in one single word and he chose it carefully. “Dialogues in Montenegro are refreshing”, he wrote.

Here comes a selection of dialogues (and a photo) he chose to share with his friends.

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“I’m sleepy, I can barely see straight.”
“Why?”
“I got up early to water my mother’s flowers. She’s not here.”

*

“I’m a musician, but I’ve been diving for years.”
“I can only imagine everything you must see underwater.”
“It’s not just what I see, but because of the work I do, I like that silence.”

*

“Have your things arrived back home?”
“Yes, the orchids from the USA also arrived in my mother’s container. It would have been better if she had taken care of me like she did those orchids. I would be a ray of sunshine today.”

*

The children are walking along the border that separates two plots. The girl removes her bangs, moves in slow, big steps, and says: Take a video of me walking on the bridge! Her brother is filming her and waiting for his turn. The border has become a bridge.

Photo: Cetinje, Montenegro.

It is interesting that Nedžad’s novel Encapsulated bodies itself in mentioned in the book Dialogues in Montenegro in a prose insert that is especially important to me, as childhood is important to any of us. Here comes that dialogue (p.147).

“I didn’t know you were an art collector.”
“I am. I have one painting made by Dado Đurić too. I love Montenegrin painters.”
“You know that in an interview, Dado asked the question: Do we ever grow out of childhood? And Nedžad Ibrahimović wrote the novel Encapsulated Bodies. In Montenegro, one evening Nedžad explained the title - we are all like Russian Matryoshka dolls: a small doll (childhood); in a slightly larger doll (high school), itself in an even bigger one (studies); and so on.”
“That’s why I like Dado. His art isn’t about technical skill, but what emerges from that smallest, first doll: his childhood.”

This post may be an example of solidarity and intellectual support between two authors - that is, as we know, very rare today.