“I deeply believe that literature can be that place where we make a change”
Interview with Croatian writer Monika Herceg
Monika Herceg is a firm believer that literature and activism should coexist, and that creative writing can and should play a pivotal role in the world we live in today.
“I deeply believe that literature can be that place where we make a change. Literature makes us better, and it’s not just a phrase. We all walk in different shoes with the books we read and all that experience makes us bigger from the inside, it makes our empathy bigger. Knowing that, there also comes responsibility because all the things we write are possible changes for the readers. And for me that means that literature must make a firm stand on the most important issues, it must guard the society. Of course, all that doesn’t put literature in second place. Literature and its style and quality always come first,” Ms Herceg said, speaking ahead of her appearance at the 6th EU-China International Literary Festival.
As an extension of this, Ms Herceg places a high value on the importance of stories by women and about women, and the wider role of feminism in literature.
“Women have been silenced for so long, and all those stories we hold for generations have the real power to make us stronger, to make us communicate more and make our fight together. The world is far from being a good place for women, for girls. There are so many places where women still don’t have some necessary rights. When we go to rural parts of Croatia, it’s also like that. And the real change will come, I strongly believe, and one of the most important ways is to tell our stories. Stories of being silenced, not having the possibility to participate in the world’s history in the right way, about being wronged in so many ways. These stories are important to see what we fight against throughout history, to make girls want to fight for a better world for them. And man – to make them gentle, kind and fighting for that better world as well,” she said.
Something of a fighter herself on these issues, Ms Herceg won the ‘Fierce Women’ award in 2021 for her activism and advocacy work.
“I work with my writing with some initiatives, for example we had an action to write through journalism and poetry about violence on our borders. It’s a big problem and all those stories are truly scary. Europe is facing a new genocide as we speak, it not being willing to accept people who run from wars and poverty, and in Croatian borders there is a lot of pushback actions and terrifying violence, even towards women and children. I speak a lot about that, we make some stands, I also speak of the civil casualties of the recent war and it is important to be aware that we also committed terrible crimes, and we all need, if we want to grow, to accept and deal with that. Also, I try to open space in the media for subjects like poverty, unequal opportunities for all children, and so on. My entire play that premiered in the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb was about transgenerational violence. I think that all the space that we have is a place to make a change, or stand, so I try to do that, from exact actions like reading at protests, memorials and so on, or just speaking of it as much as I can. Here in Croatia femicide is also a big problem, as the violence toward women, and my next play that should be premiered next year is about that.”
Mr Herceg’s poetry has met with widespread critical acclaim, and she has become the most awarded young author in recent Croatian history. Reflecting on her own career to date, her key advice to anyone who wants to make a mark in the world of publishing would be to “dig deep, and write like there’s no one left”.
“All my poetry books are projects, and concepts. Initial Coordinates is about growing up and is kind of a novel in poetry. My second book Closed Season is all about women and feminism, and my third book Time before Tongue is about love. So, for me writing is building, also. The same happens when I write texts for theatre. My plays are as much poetry, more than anything, and my prose likes to make some experiments as well. Now I’m writing a novel and I play a lot. Maybe that’s the point of writing, pushing your limits and making something more challenging. Also, all I write I need to write. And maybe that’s the most important advice I give to myself and would give to anyone: dig deep, write like there is no one left and put your emotions in that text. Write because you have to and know yourself enough to know that there is always something inside you need to write about,” she said.
The collection Initial Coordinates has a background in tension and conflict but it could be said it emerges in hope, and in the end that book delivered a spiritual home of sorts to Ms Herceg that she had long been seeking, she said.
“Initial Coordinates is mainly about my childhood, but also about the history of my village, beliefs, about superstitions that exist in the village, and about nature. I made a book of poetry like a novel in verse, it has a firm timeline, and all the poems are little stories, set in different times and different seasons. The book goes through changing seasons, it all starts in the autumn, and so it finishes. I think my need was to catch in time this village where I grew up, where my family is from, periods of exile and to try and explain to myself, and to the readers all the pain that goes with such big tragedies as war. And tragedies like that are tragedies of the small people, families because they lose everything, and that pain very often makes them forget what they have left. I grew up not having a toilet, or bathroom. We were poor and always on the margins. Our village was burned to the ground, and I never actually had a home, we moved a lot, so I never really belonged. I suppose I tried to make my own roots by making this book. And in a way, that’s what happened. This book gave me that home, in the end.”
Not only a celebrated writer, Ms Herceg is also a physicist and there are certain elements of that scientific background that benefit her as a writer, she believes.
“My physics background made me believe that there is no problem that cannot be solved, it only sometimes takes more of our knowledge and time needed to process new paradigms that we encounter on our way. Same thing goes with writing, when you put your time, head and heart into one text, it solves itself. Also, I kind of really like elegant structures, so all of my books are concepts in a way, and I really liked writing them that way. It makes it possible to set an entire new world in a book, even a poetry book. And most of the time we get it wrong. Science and writing, art in general, are the same creative energy. They are much alike, and they make us imaginative, and thinking out of the box. So, both are kind of life changing,” she said.