Behind the great writers Always there are great editors, without distinction. Their names, the names of those editors, are somewhere at the beginning of the books, on the top left, readers generally never read them, those who do usually forget them immediately, and only the more dedicated first look at who edited the book. Editors are, in fact, self-deprecating beings, more self-deprecating than the otherwise self-deprecating translators, so only experienced and curious readers will knjige able to choose, among other things, by who edited or translated it. If you haven't already heard of the writer, and the book is edited by Kruno Lokotar, pick it up immediately and without hesitation. And vice versa: if we are talking about contemporary Croatian for a writer who came out with a good name in the region, there is a huge probability that his book was edited by Kruno Lokotar.
Recently, Lokotar published in the Sarajevo Baybook the diary he kept for a year, from July 2022 to July 2023. In addition to the other surprises he treated us to in that text, he showed, despite his self-deprecation, that he can also write (and very well). Suddenly he appeared on the stage under the full light of the spotlight.
"WEATHER" What is your job really?? How do you get that job?? What schools should be completed to become a book editor?
KRUNO LOKOTAR: Thank you for the introduction, I have to defend myself in part, not everything I edited was gold, but if I was lucky with the authors - yes, if I helped as much as I know and know how, I also did.
The editor's job is to be, you wrote it nicely in the introduction, a gray eminence, an invisible driver, but I obviously didn't quite succeed in that, otherwise there wouldn't be this conversation. We can say that the editor's job is gardening, when the concept of culture from agriculture, not to say agriculture, has already emerged. He fixes the beds a little, takes care of which plants are planted where, takes care of which plants are not tolerated, weeds and if necessary waters, assesses whether the garden bears the crop we want and whether it bears it at all, and performs other tasks that combine it with production. If we ignore those georgics, the editor is a person between a rock and a hard place, between the owner of the company, be it a fund or a person, and the author, who for now is only a person, or several people, including digressions such as the commercial, legal sector, marketing, at least that's how it goes in theory. In practice, it is completely different, the editor is always singular, each one depends very much on the context in which he works and the areas he deals with, because editors edit translations and domestic books, encyclopedias and atlases, angry theory and journalism, poetry and prose, children's literature, they even help self help to the authors. In simplified terms, the editor is a filter that, with its network of knowledge, decides which manuscripts will be published and how they will be published, and often takes care of directing their reception, and between these extremes there are many moves that it performs, mostly automatically.
Perhaps it is because of this diversity that there are no schools, not even many manuals on how to become an editor, and there are certainly no local ones translated here. I am self-taught.
You started at the AGM publishing house...
Very early on, already at the age of 34 and with a rather wrong idea of what I would actually do, I became the editor-in-chief of a medium-sized publishing house, AGM, which means about 30 titles a year of various genres and genres. Namely, I naively believed that I would spend most of my time in the Botanical Garden across from the company on a bench reading manuscripts with lovely birdsong that would fill me with optimism as I drew, more remarks and less praise, along the margins of manuscripts. Despite that grotesque-romantic delusion, it turns out that I managed well.
photo: marko majstorović...
Where did you get the idea to become an editor??
When I was about 32 years old, I told my partner at the time, who was not sure that she could predict my future, that in about 10 years I would end up as an editor, and well done. Because a certain director of the AGM, Janislav Šaban, a man younger than me, called me and asked if I was interested in the job of editor. He followed the wider cultural scene and was intrigued by the magazine New Year and FAK (Festival A of Literature), both brought some developments and novelties, and the name that united both was mine. When I still told him that I play chess, and kept silent about the fact that I was quite bad and getting worse, he decided to hire me. That was wise, because an editor should also have analytical intelligence, the numbers must be close to him, and they are to me. In addition, I also had an institutional background, studying history, comparative literature and librarianship, the practice of working in a library helped me a lot in understanding the breadth of the concept of a book, as well as about seemingly unimportant things, namely that a book must not have too small a font or be too heavy.
Did you write it yourself??
I had a lot behind me at that time, writing long reviews and essays, some theater groups, starting school magazines, mostly making a mess and pushing boundaries. Later I realized that this overstepping is crucial, both in the strictly semiotic sense according to Yuri Lotman: overstepping the border of the semantic field, and in practice. In translation: it is a violation of order. Let's say: let's cause riots!
How do you view FAK today?? When it comes to Serbia, it was the first post-war physical meeting of Croatian and Serbian writers in Belgrade and Novi Sad.
The periodization of Croatian literature is divided into before and after FAK for a reason. We were young, enthusiastic, energetic and in a rocker mood, so we created a channel that entertained us and promoted the whole scene at the same time. A lot was done with FAK, more could have been done if egoism had not blown it up. A quarter of a century has passed since then and I have never regretted being a prominent stakeholder, but you should always remember that it was a collective project. Apart from connecting with the British scene, for which Borivoj Radaković is by far the most responsible, FAK also opened up to the region and, most importantly, returned readers to the local book. We suffered some criticism because of our guest appearances in Novi Sad and Belgrade, SDP's Minister of Culture Antun Vujić called us names for that guest appearance, because some looted treasures from Croatia were not returned, which was certainly true, but also the return of that was his job, not ours. FAK was as cathartic as a concert, both for the audience and for the performers, both in Croatia and in Serbia. This phenomenon is still awaiting scientific treatment. They persuaded me to prepare a monograph on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the first FAK, but I refused, because it is a job for those who were not participants. I can only offer a lot of material and memories that are slowly fading away. If FAK lasted for three days, I would have lost about a kilogram and a half, that's how intense it all was. Gym, and pleasure.
What pushed you the most to get out of your role and agree to lead Dnevnik?
When Semezdin Mehmedinović invited me to write a diary for his library, which is really prestigious, I was really surprised. I never asked him why he invited me, and I can't explain that either. Because we are not some long-standing friends or colleagues, but we had a few drinks, I read to him, he followed me, and I ended up as the first non-writer in that library.
I have a personal problem with diaries, I have never written them, because I have a primitive prejudice that people who write them think they are important, and when someone thinks they are important, they immediately lose their importance to me, purely human. If we move on only to the most concise definition of that genre, which fits under "where I was and what I did" and "how I felt and what I thought", then if we break down those concepts, there we are in the whole chrestomat of philosophy.
Yet, you agreed...
I firmly told Sam that I had too much to do - I was then freelancer, time is money, money is existence, family income is more modest - so I have to think. I was clean enough inside that it seemed like a luxury to me, even though the invitation suited me.
But the most beautiful thing that the editor gives is faith. Sam, and he is nobody to me, for some reason he gave me his trust. It is memorable and does not disappoint. I know, I am the one who gives faith, I am the editor, I say, do it - I usually also radicalize the author's ideas so that they don't cross the border of the semantic field - I stand behind you, you can do it, come on, I'll get the funds and drive. A year is a good framework, we all live according to the calendar, ideologically according to holidays and when we don't celebrate them, Vivaldi because we are lucky to live in four seasons, and to that we should also add personal and family important dates. Records are occasional but continuous. Next year would be quite similar, so one is quite enough for several of them. With that, I also defined the range of the diary, because the diary has no end, but simply stops writing.
photo: irena bosnićKruno Lokotar and Petrica Kerempuh
Do you like to write?, or is writing painful for you??
For the most part, I was not afraid of disappointing Sam with my writing, I write easily and quickly, I just don't feel like it, after the day slaps me, in the evening I like to reward myself with numbing, bleating and psycho-dispersion, and the diary is written in the evening, or in the morning, but then inbox she's already screaming and nervousness has settled in me. Not even when, on the first day of journaling, I was wasps from the glass of water served alongside All espresso brewing methods a sting in the lip - and if I had pulled harder it might have hit the palate, trachea or esophagus and who knows if I would have survived - I didn't give that "sign" any importance, but laughed about it. Signs are for lovers, they are spontaneously superstitious. And for important ones.
Therefore, not even the wasp's manic attack on your person swayed you?
Yok! Furthermore, it was easy, you write when you arrive and as much as you want, and since you are constantly present on some alpha-waves, the composition and structure crystallize as the material grows. When a year passes and you go to edit it, you are surprised by some things, purely statistically. You realize that you are, after all, someone else than what you expected, and you gratefully come to terms with it. In particular, I expected some verses or speeches from myself, but they didn't happen, somewhere along the way I lost those types of opinions. Or you are surprised at how much football there is, but that was that year, the World Cup in football and hanging out around the screen over a pint of bubbly. With match broadcasts at normal times.
It's in the Diary., you say it yourself, a lot of football (actually a character study, including the writer's character). How do you feel about this recent championship in America??
I wished for a boycott of the entire championship, but I wouldn't put a cent on that bet. I have never been more indifferent to the WC than this year. What can we expect from a state that is unscrupulously led by a hypernarcissist in obvious, daily and permanent conflict with reality, who treats his partners as if they were his vassals and meddles in everything? He attacked Iran again as soon as the US national team was eliminated, for him the Olympic truce lasted while the US national team participated, after that everything immediately became unimportant. The list of nastiness is long, and it's not like there aren't any of them with football. Well, those are short impressions, and it's not easy for me to stop.
And the dreams you wrote down?
I recently realized that the dreams I wrote down in order were awful. And it's not that I suffer from bad dreams, but if they could be more beautiful - here I object to Morpheus and Hypnos - they could. Then you realize that you only remember those, heavy, devastating, that hold your lungs even when you wake up. In a way, they are healing. It really is more beautiful when you wake up. Sweet dreams are poison for reality, a source of trouble. So, dream bad dreams for a better reality!
Let me try again.: are you, writing a diary, stepped down from the role of editor?
I don't have the impression that I got out of my role as an editor, because I edited the diary as it was being created, whether each author wanted it or not and, at least, the proto-editor. I put together a network of elements, left tears on it, designed it and blinded it to its flaws and material errors, but it was also a kind of cheerful bureaucracy for me. I don't even consider myself to have entered the role of a writer, because I didn't pretend that my diary would be literature at all costs, the purpose of the diary is still primarily documentary. As there were a lot of reactions and promotions, only in Serbia I didn't have a promotion in the area of b, h, s, cg languages, the reason is that many summarized that Lokotar knows how to write, and that then probably strengthened my editorial authority, although I don't think that it is necessary for editors to draw authority from the fact that they can write like writers.
You said it a moment ago. (after reading his own manuscript), "You realize that you are, after all, someone else than what you expected, and you gratefully come to terms with it. " What exactly does that mean??
This means that I don't think much about myself, but I check in occasionally, when the data is in order. I don't have any expectations of myself, except that I don't screw up something bad or someone, I don't even have time for self-reflection, it wouldn't be relevant anyway, we are what others see us as. We are our actions, the truth is on the surface, and I am constantly being dragged on by some devil, not to look back. If someone wants to recapitulate, that word also contains capitulation, so be it.
...Kruno Lokotar on the caricature of Damir Karakash
There's a lot of music in the Diary., a lot of fine art, shooting, socializing and having fun, a lot of silence, and the reader, absolutely, he is not sure if literature has an advantage over other forms of life, expressions... Is there?
Uh, there is, but it's a confluence of circumstances and the dictates of survival, and it's not just literature, but rather books in general, especially lately when I edit mainly critical nonfiction. But yes, everything else is too little for me, film, music, art. I notice that it's hard for me to go among people, to concerts, premieres... The era of headphones and home projections has come. I still haven't experienced boredom, although the saturation with my own life and my own routines that make it easier and at the same time ossify, I pass by in a flash.
What criteria do you use to evaluate the text?? Has it ever happened that a bad start leads to something that is acceptable?
In literature, how is crucial, not what. Literature is the art of language, that simple fact is too often forgotten. There are few manuscripts that can be so driven by the force of events that they can be written in sloppy language. Linguistic lack of intensity, by which I mean deviations in both directions, both in ornamentation and in reduction, can destroy any structure. Linguistic lack of intensity, by which I mean non-deviations in both directions, both in ornamentation and reduction, can destroy any structure. But even the zero level of language can have artistic significance, especially when it talks about the exceptional and dramatic, thus creating dissonance.
As a rule, on the first few cards, sometimes in the first paragraph when the description of the olive begins with seven conventional adjectives, it is clear whether there is hope for the text, although I always ask the authors to send a synopsis. How the synopsis is understood and written also gives clear signals about the expectations of the text. It is good to use film forums, to ask the authors, who have reached that level of consideration, what is it for them logline, so a summary of the story in a maximum of two sentences. Until tagline, which should give the action or the atmosphere in a short dictionary, we rarely get there. In general, I think fiction writers can benefit greatly from screenplay manuals. And not only them.
Basically, if one knows how to generate intensive language, the rest can be learned. The reverse is much more difficult. Writing requires dedication, it doesn't go along with a hundred other jobs, it requires the sacrifice of solitude, isolation, immersion, if that is a sacrifice. Instantaneity is easily recognisable, sometimes editorial risks are taken with it. But everything is clear, if not sooner, on the second book. All this does not mean that anyone is infallible, there are trends and generations that we do not necessarily understand. I used to be able to assess what the reception would be, and today I still manage to do it, but it is more difficult, I am more insecure, the greater the rift between me and the time I live in, as misunderstandings are rampant. It is of course excellent material for writing, but the reception is more difficult to assess. The writer doesn't even have to deal with that, it's a job for the editor. It is up to the writer to write about what bothers him, what he tries to understand, what he is surprised by, where he sees inconsistencies.
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