(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Dag Herbjørnsrud's one-eyed reading of my short story 'Den Høyre Armen' in Ny Tid 29.07. need a little remark.
The story is built on an ancient legend that I have heard in the Balkans. And it was not – that it should be necessary to say so! – the historicity of the material that fascinated me, but the literary possibilities, for – as Herbjørnsrud lectures so emotionally about -: the Turkish rule in the Balkans was far from as intolerantly destructive as parts of Serbian historiography would like it to be, albeit perhaps not so sacredly sympathetic as Herbjørnsrud seems to think.
But my case was completely different. It was literary. It was a separate twist on the old legendary example, to present the impossible choice, as a universal issue. The literary scene could just as easily have been the Basque Spain, Hitler's Third Reich or Cortés' Tenochtitlán. Or – to put it bluntly -: the story is not about Serbs and Turks, but about victims and abusers, as well as about the victim's desperate and complex struggle for life and dignity. Herbjørnsrud possibly thinks that out of consideration for my reading ability around me, I should have chosen a different literary arena than the Balkans, or other abusers and other victims. I can live with that. However, the way he connects the short story to Srebrenica is only depressing, more worthy of a crusader than a journalist.
