I am a Balkan writer. Why do people think I only know about war and tragedy? |Ana Schnabl

I Participated in the American Writers Conference in Texas before the world fell into the Covid-19 lockdown. Between the panel and the network, I spent a lot of time wandering around the book fair, browsing the title, and bringing problems.

“How many times have you translated your work in the catalog? How do you find authors from outside the United States? How do you evaluate the quality of language writing that doesn’t speak?”

I’m not just curious – I’m performing a task. I wonder what kind of work has attracted American publishers and whether mine will attract their interest. I didn’t bother with my ambitions.

A response was with me and came into my mind like a spore. It comes from a representative from one of the largest publishers in the United States. After I explained my position, using buzzwords such as “the Northern Republic of the Former Yugoslavia” and “not a war zone at the moment”, he made this suggestion:

“Think about stories and themes specific to your culture and local history.”

“So,” I risked, “not a story about a woman who left the financial career, divorced her husband and became Potter?”

“Well, if this story also explores your cultural or historical issues, that’s it.”

I felt annoying, but I thanked him politely and walked away. Coffee and cigarettes suddenly feel essential.

In the years since, I began to understand why his words were so annoyed to me. They exposed a pattern- still frustrated me.

For the Balkans, other European countries and the authors of the world, whose history and culture are North American mysteries, our or British publishers’ paths often rely on encountering an unspeakable condition: Our work must present the political or cultural context of our region, or at least come from picky historical activities. To succeed, it must have explanatory or explanatory value – ideally with a series of pedagogicalism.

“American readers need to know this place,” the publisher said.

At first glance, this expectation seems benign – even reasonable. After all, authors from all over the world, including those from the Balkans, have reflected on their direct political and cultural environment. Literature has always been a medium for mirroring, analyzing and criticizing society.

However, the deeper meaning of this expectation is even more disturbing. This is an implicit belief that the Balkans are a smaller place – the area that always occupies land and has the potential for tragedy. As the publisher candidly says, “Solving problems that are cultural or historically or better, traumatic will attract people’s attention.”

Through “trauma”, is he imagining the atrocities of World War II or Yugoslavia War? Is he imagining a region that is trapped in poverty, inequality and patriarchal traditions? Perhaps he thought Balkan society was vulnerable to violence or grief. Perhaps he hopes that there are stories of post-socialist disillusionment that keeps us still dealing with the idea of “trauma” of Yugoslav socialism.

I can’t be sure. All I know is: He won’t be interested in the Balkan version My rest and relaxation for a year. A novel about the protagonist from the Balkans who are simply exhausted by capitalism, self-absorbing, angry or ambiguity, will not be able to quell the right box.

Sadly for him, he might cover it up Mixed Novels Slovenian writer Nataša Kramberger took over a farm in Steria, Slovenia after moving back from Berlin. I suspect he doesn’t care much about Croatian short stories Luiza Bouharaouait depicts the anxiety and joy of millennials, albeit in the color of the Adriatic Sea. Nor is the poem by a North Macedonian poet Kalia Dimitrovahe likes to mention Capri and Berlin, but rarely to Skoopje.

For the successful work of Balkan writers, the protagonist must be the victim – a clear and clear person. Publishers prefer stories that arouse compassion, moral outrage, heartbreak or ideal situations.

In short, our Balkan writers are expected to touch universal subjects through narrow regional lenses – grief, alienation, love, loss. And the lens must include distortions of self-explosion.

It should be clear that the Balkans are a specific region with unique cultural, political and historical complexity. Writers from this part of the world have a lot to say about this, and many people do a good job. But if translation into English is to expand knowledge about the “Balkans”, publishers must be willing to participate in stories challenging established ideas.

The question is not whether Balkan writers should reflect their background. We do it naturally often. The question is whether publishers will listen to the diversity of voices that appear in the region, or whether they will continue to enjoy narratives that subtly enhance their assumptions.

After all, there are so many more trauma, tragedy, or tailored stories in the Balkans. There are also words about women who once worked in finance, left their husbands and started their pottery business. Some North American and British publishers have fully supported such stories – so Georgi Gostodinov’s International Booking Award – and fulfilled the mission of bringing voices from every corner of the world to a global audience, rather than as an ambassador to its geography, but as a storyteller. But there are more things to do.