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Backup Cat Out of ‘Breakfast’

Montie, backstage.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Montie, backstage.

Even as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” prepared to open on Broadway Wednesday night, one cat was out of the bag â€" or at least, out of a job. The main cat understudy, Montie, a black-and-white male, has been fired for being, well, difficult. He didn’t follow stage directions.

“Cats do have nine lives,” Rick Miramontez, the publicist, said in a statement. “While there are others who are joining the production as understudies and covers, Montie will remain at the theater indefinitely.”

Montie is staying because his owner is Babette Corelli, who has been training cats for the show and helped with casting. Such are pet politics.

Meanwhile the star cat, Vito Vincent, is now negotiating â€" through his owner â€" for a nightly car and driver, The New York Post reported.

Montie will be replaced by Moo. The cat dressing room has bouquets of flowers and wrapped packages with dozens of cans of cat food as opening-night gifts.

Vito â€" a plump, ginger-colored male whose card lists him as “Talent” â€" as well as Montie are expected to paw the red carpet at tonight’s opening. “The company looks forward to celebrating with them tonight,” Mr. Miramontez said.



Bon Jovi Bests Bowie on Album Chart

Bon Jovi's Bon Jovi’s “What About Now.”

With the top of the Billboard album chart this week looking like a bit of a flashback to 1986, Bon Jovi is No. 1 and David Bowie has landed at No. 2 with his first new album in a decade.

Bon Jovi’s “What About Now” (Island) sold 101,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the band’s third in a row to reach No. 1. Mr. Bowie’s new album, “The Next Day” (Columbia), sold 85,000 copies, sending him higher than he has ever been on the American chart. (The closest he came before was in 1976, when “Station to Station” went to No. 3.)

On the singles chart, Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” is No. 1 for a fifth week, but its lead is narrowing as the song’s viral life cycle winds down. When it entered the chart at No. 1 â€" thanks to Billboard starting to incorporate YouTube videos into its chart methodology â€" the song had 103 million streams; this week it had 28 million. “Harlem Shake” also had 146,000 downloads, while the No. 2 single this week, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop,” had 270,000 downloads.

Back to albums, the rest of the Top 10 is a mix of holdover hits and new arrivals. Luke Bryan’s compilation “Spring Break … Here to Party” (Capitol Nashville), last week’s No. 1, fell two spots to No. 3 with 61,000 sales, and Bruno Mars’s “Unorthodox Jukebox” (Atlantic) is also down two, to No. 5, with 43,000 sales.

New albums include the Christian album “Passion: Let the Future Begin” (sixsteps), at No. 4 with 48,000; Mindless Behavior’s “All Around the World” (Streamline/Conjunction/Interscope), at No. 6 with 37,000; and Eric Clapton’s latest, “Old Sock” (Bushbranch/Surfdog), bowing at No. 7 with almost 37,000 sales. (SoundScan’s publicly reported numbers are rounded.)

Next week’s chart is expected to be dominated by Justin Timberlake’s comeback album, “The 20/20 Experience” (RCA), which Billboard’s chart experts predict will open with more than 750,000 sales.



Michelle Shocked Says Comments on Gay Marriage Were Misunderstood

At least ten clubs and music halls have canceled concerts by Michelle Shocked since she went on an anti-gay tirade during a show in San Francisco on Sunday night.

Late Tuesday, her publicist distributed a letter from the singer in which she said she had been misunderstood. During the show, she reportedly warned that a court decision overturning California’s Proposition 8 and thus reinstating gay marriage would bring about the apocalypse. In the open letter, she apologized for not expressing herself as clearly as she should.

“My view of homosexualty has changed not one iota,” she said, according to Buzzfeed. “I judge not. And my statement equating repeal of Prop 8 with the coming of the End Times was neither literal nor ironic: it was a description of how some folks - not me - feel about gay marriage.”

Michelle Shocked also denied she had said God hates homosexuals. “I said that some of his followers believe that,” she said.



Best-Selling Russian Writer Turns From Crime to History

MOSCOW â€" Grigory Chkhartishvili, the best-selling Russian writer known for his detective novels set in imperial Russia (written under the name Boris Akunin), and for his foray into opposition politics directed against Vladimir V. Putin announced that from now on he would devote himself to writing a multivolume history of Russia.

“Some writers dream of becoming the new Tolstoy, others the new Chekhov,” he wrote on his blog on Wednesday. “It’s come time to acknowledge that I have always dreamt of becoming the new Karamzin,” he said, referring to Nikolai Karamzin, who wrote an early-19th-century 12-volume “History of the Russian State.” “I am no longer a crime novelist,” he declared.

Mr. Chkhartishvili, 56, originally a literary scholar specializing in Japan, said he had already written his first history volume, about the period preceding the 12th-century Mongol invasion. The works, he said, would be accompanied by historical novels paralleling their chronology that would trace a family’s history over a millennium. He said he aims for a mass readership with the history, and that Karamzin is a model because he also had a background as a fiction writer who didn’t want to bore readers.

History has become an increasingly tense topic in Russia. President Putin recently ordered that new ideologically approved history textbooks be produced for schools. Mr. Chkhartishvili wrote in his blog that Russians know very little about their own history and his work would be distinctly “non-ideological” in contrast to “current official efforts to produce a new ‘correct’ history.”



Hawk Cam Returns for Third Season

The Hawk Cam view of a red-tailed hawk, believed to be Rosie, on Wednesday morning.Screengrab by Christopher James/New York University The Hawk Cam view of a red-tailed hawk, believed to be Rosie, on Wednesday morning.

The Hawk Cam, which has chronicled the lives of red-tailed hawks in Washington Square Park since 2011, will return for a third season very soon. The stars of the reality raptor drama, believed to be last year’s couple, Rosie and Bobby, are currently warming three eggs on a nest situated on the 12th-floor window ledge of New York University’s president, John Sexton.

The camera is expected to go live in the coming days, John Beckman, the university’s spokesman, said on Wednesday. The university will be sponsoring this year’s broadcast, with equipment donated by The New York Times.

“We have been in touch with some of the stalwart members of the online community that have followed the hawks, and we’ll be working with them over the coming days to let the broader community of Hawk Cam watchers know when we are ready to start the streaming video, which should be soon,” Mr. Beckman said in an e-mail.

D. Bruce Yolton/Urban HawksThe installation of the camera at New York University on March 19

According to Mr. Beckman, the first egg was spotted “a few weeks ago” and the third appeared last week. The mother bird has been on the nest “pretty constantly,” he added. Typically, hatching begins 28 to 35 days after egg-laying, meaning that there could be a baby hawk in early April.

The first season of the Hawk Cam starred Bobby and his then-mate, Violet, who died in December 2011 following surgery to remove a necrotic foot, and their offspring, Pip.

Last January, Bobby mated with a new female, named Rosie for her feather coloring. The pair consummated their union atop a church cross and successfully incubated two baby hawks, who made their live debut in April. The young hawks, named Boo and Scout by readers, took their first flight at the end of May.

“We know people are eager for the Hawk Cam to resume, and we’re glad to be able to responsive,” added Mr. Beckman.

We’ll let you know when the camera is ready for prime time.

For coverage and updates, read D. Bruce Yolton’s Urban Hawks, rogerpaw.blogspot.com and follow @Rueby on Twitter.



Deft Hands Make Her Job Worth Her Time

Sandy Yu, 37, is a familiar sight in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where she repairs watches on the street.Todd Heisler/The New York Times Sandy Yu, 37, is a familiar sight in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where she repairs watches on the street.
Ms. Yu manages to make repairs swiftly even though her fingers were damaged in a fire when she was a baby.Todd Heisler/The New York Times Ms. Yu manages to make repairs swiftly even though her fingers were damaged in a fire when she was a baby.

On a recent Saturday, Sandy Yu, protected by a red parka, was one of the few sidewalk vendors who showed up along a normally jammed Fifth Avenue commercial strip in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

“Battery change â€" how much” asked a young woman, holding out her watch. “Five dollar,” said Ms. Yu, between sips from a thermos.

Ms. Yu, 37, took her tools from a box of baby wipes. She plucked out the watch’s battery with tweezers, replaced it with a new one, cleaned the mechanism, then reset the time and calendar.

All this took Ms. Yu less than a minute â€" without the full use of her hands. Her fingers are fused together as a result of a childhood accident. The customer, who did not seem surprised by Ms. Yu’s speed, handed her a five-dollar bill, which Ms. Yu tucked into her shoulder bag.

For the past six years, Ms. Yu has set up her watch repair stand in the heart of a seven-block stretch of vendors, grilling corn and frying empanadas, selling jewelry and toys. She rarely moves from her chair, except when she’s tending to her children â€" washing her 3-year-old son’s hands, or brushing her 8-year-old daughter’s hair. Many passers-by know her: “Will you be here tomorrow” one man asks, anxiously. “12:30,” she replied.

She is there on summer days when the sidewalks are carnival-like â€" bags of cotton candy topping vendors’ carts like flags â€" and in the dead of winter, when people hurry past, heads down. For two dollars she does minor adjustments, like taking links off watchbands. For $10 she replaces watchbands and does simple repairs.

“Always, I want to be working,” she said. She sets up her stand even if it’s raining. “If I’m working, I still have a hope” the day will clear, she explains in halting English.

Some people have told Ms. Yu that there is a stigma attached to working outdoors on the street. But, she said, “I am not ashamed. My job is so flexible.’’

If her children are sick, for instance, she can stay home with them. And she likes the independence: “I work alone.” She lives nearby with her husband, David Hu, 41, who operates his own watch repair stand on Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, and their three children. The couple came here from China in 2003.

Ms. Yu learned her craft from her husband, who owned a clothing and jewelry store in Guangzhou. Before they met, he had become “interested in watches,” she said, “and bought a lot of books” on the subject. “If someone had an old watch that was broken, he would buy it. Little by little, he start to know it, to organize it.”

She sometimes shopped at his store. “I noticed him,” she said about her future husband, a shy, handsome man. “We talked a little bit.” Her friends encouraged her to try to meet him. She was not interested, but one day a friend took her watch to the shop for repairs. When it came back, there were two small hearts clipped onto it.

Recently, a woman in a brilliant blue sari handed Ms. Yu a gold watch for a battery change. “What happened to your hands” she asked. ”I was in a fire,” Ms. Yu said. Later, she explained: When she was about 8 months old, her grandmother put her close to a primitive stove in her family’s farmhouse kitchen. It was filled with burning hay. “The fire came near where I was sitting,” she said. Burns covered her face and hands. When her family took her to the village doctor, “he put my fingers together,” she said, reshaping her hands.

It wasn’t until 2003, as part of her visa application, that she had a medical exam. “The doctor said they should have separated my fingers,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I’d have more fingers to use. They made a big mistake.”

Ms. Yu rarely has a chance to speak English beyond her brief contact with customers. “I learned English from doing homework with my older son,” she said. She also studied intermittently at the Brooklyn Chinese Association, and said she hoped to go back to school and get a high school equivalency diploma when her children are older. She worries that her vocabulary is shrinking: “Since I stop studying English,” she said. “I lose, lose, lose.”

She and Mr. Hu have lived in Sunset Park since they arrived from China. “Everybody knows me,” she said. “This neighborhood is always lucky: We didn’t get the hurricane, or the one before that.”

The light was fading. Soon she would pack up her watch repair stand, load it onto a dolly and wheel it home. “There may be a better place,” she said, but “for now, I am satisfied.”



PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award Goes to Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Joining a pantheon that includes Philip Roth, E.L. Doctorow and John Updike, Benjamin Alire Sáenz has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his short story collection, “Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,” The Associated Press reported.

The author will receive $15,000 for “Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,” published by Cincos Puntos Press of El Paso, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced on Tuesday.

Earlier this year, Mr. Sáenz’s “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” was selected by the American Library Association as the best young adult novel about the Latino cultural experience and the best book about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender experience.



CBS Renews ‘C.S.I.’

CBS announced Wednesday that it has renewed the biggest television hit of the past decade, “C.S.I.,” for a 14th season.

The network said it had extended the contract of the show’s star Ted Danson and secured most of the cast, including Elisabeth Shue, for another season of episodes.

“C.S.I.” recently won the International TV Audience Award for the “most watched show in the world.” This is the third year in the row the show had reached that accolade and the fifth time in seven years.

The show also spun off two other successful versions, one in Miami and one in New York. It has been estimated to be one of the most financially successful shows of all time, generating several billion dollars in profits.



A Challenge Grant From Weills to Spur Carnegie Hall Renovation

Carnegie Hall has received a $10 million challenge grant from its chairman, Sanford I. Weill, and his wife, Joan, and their Weill Family Foundation toward the completion of its $230 million renovation. The project, known as the Studio Towers Renovation, will create new spaces for music education on the landmark building’s upper floors and upgrade the concert hall’s backstage areas. It is scheduled to be completed in 2014.

“It will really transform Carnegie Hall,” Mr. Weill said in a telephone interview. “It’s much more effective to run an organization where everything you’re doing is in one place.”

The main part of the project is the new 61,000-square-foot Judith B. and Burton P. Resnick Education Wing,which includes practice rooms, teaching studios and a home for Carnegie Hall’s archives.

The grant challenges Carnegie Hall to raise $20 million by Sept. 30 for a total of $30 million toward the capital campaign. Nearly half the funds needed to meet the challenge have been raised so far, and more than $209 million has been raised over all. The $10 million challenge grantâ€"to be matched by $9 million in recently received pledges and $11 million still to be raisedâ€"would complete fundraising.

In 2003, a major endowment gift from the Weills established Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which developed the organization’s music education and community programs.

Pledges received to date include a previously-announced $25 million leadership gift from the Weills; a $10 million major gift from Judith and Burton Resnick; and funding from New York City and New York State. The total also includes $56.5 million in net proceeds from bonds issued through the Trust for Cultural Resources from the City of New York.



HBO Cancels ‘Enlightened’

Despite some critical acclaim, a second-season ratings spike and a Golden Globe award for best actress, HBO’s “Enlightened” will be no more. After two seasons, the series created by Mike White and Laura Dern, who also starred, has been canceled, The Hollywood Reporter said.

“It was a very difficult decision,” HBO said in a statement. “We’ve decided not to continue ‘Enlightened’ for a third season. We’re proud of the show, and we look forward to working with Mike White and Laura Dern in the future.”

In the series, Ms. Dern played Amy Jellicoe, a midlevel corporate executive who has a nervous breakdown after an office affair and returns from rehab to try to improve her life. She won a Golden Globe for the role in 2012.

“Enlightened’s” second season opened in January to 300,000 viewers, up from the 210,000 for its debut the year before. But the viewership dipped as it went on, declining to just 130,000 the week before its finale, which garnered an audience of 200,000.



‘The Revisionst’ Eyes Broadway as it Extends Run

One of the hottest Off Broadway tickets, the Vanessa Redgrave-Jesse Eisenberg play “The Revisionist,” is adding an extra week of performances before its new closing date of April 27, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater announced on Wednesday. The theater’s leaders have also begun exploring transferring the production to Broadway during the 2013-14 season.

“The Revisionist,” written by Mr. Eisenberg (an Oscar nominee for “The Social Network”) and directed by Kip Fagan, is already on track to be the biggest money-maker in the 17-year history of the Rattlestick company, according to its artistic director, David Van Asselt. In an interview he said that it was too soon to estimate total ticket sales for the 10-week run, but added that when the mostly positive reviews of “The Revisionist” were published on Feb. 28 the production sold $200,000 in tickets that day - a sizable number of those then available. Within two days the rest of the tickets were sold out.

“We usually do a lot of discounting for our shows, oriented to attracting younger theater-goers, but in this case we were selling at the full $85 price,” Mr. Van Asselt said of the 177-seat Cherry Lane Theater, where the company has been based since 2011. “The success of this show has been incredible for Rattlestick.”

The play centers on a young American visiting Poland to hole up and write a book while staying with his second cousin Maria, played by Ms. Redgrave, who in turn is eager to connect with her relative. Critics especially embraced the performance of Ms. Redgrave, an Oscar and Tony Award winner, and the opportunity to see her up close in such a snug theater.

Regarding Broadway, Mr. Van Asselt said he was talking to commercial producers about a possible transfer, but the discussions were nascent. He declined to name the producers. “We have actors here who have movie schedules, so timing is one factor, as well as getting the right-sized, intimate playhouse on Broadway and getting investors,” Mr. Van Asselt said. “So it’s far too soon to say if the transfer would happen. But I do think Vanessa and Jesse would like to keep doing the play.”



Robert Forster to Play Reagan in a New Play

The actor Robert Forster, a Rochester native (and Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown”), will portray Ronald Reagan at Rochester’s Geva Theater Center in June, the theater announced.

The world premiere of “The Lifeguard: Ronald Reagan and His Story,” by David Rambo, will have a limited run from June 13 to June 30.

The coming 2013-2014 season on the Wilson Mainstage will feature a new play by John Cariani, the author of “Almost, Maine,” and Geva’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol.”

At theater’s Fielding Nextstage, Geva will present its entry in the Rochester Fringe Festival, and a range of contemporary plays in what will be known as the Studio Series.

The current spring season on the Nextstage includes “Bob” by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, “No Child” by Nilaja Sun and “Venus in Fur” by David Ives, which had a successful run on Broadway

Two productions remain on the Mainstage in the theater center’s 40th anniversary season: “The Whipping Man,” Matthew Lopez’s Civil War drama, and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”



A New Purpose for an Old Telephone Building, but Its Dull Face Remains

When City Room last visited the bulky old telephone switching station at 375 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, it was poised to emerge â€" like a chrysalis â€" from its limestone shell and turn into a sleek glass-skinned office tower, putting at risk its standing as one of the uglier skyscrapers in New York.

375 Pearl Street.David W. Dunlap/The New York Times 375 Pearl Street.

That was early 2008, before the bottom fell out of the economy, the developers at Taconic Investment Partners lost control of the building and the M&T Bank sold it for $119 million to a group headed by the Sabey Corporation of Seattle.

Sabey is turning the 32-story structure into a commercial data center where tenants can house their servers with what Sabey says will be uninterrupted power, cooling and security. The first phase, now nearing completion, has the capacity to handle 5.4 megawatts of electrical demand, Tom Beckwith, a senior vice president at Sabey, said. Prospective tenants are typically in the market for 100 kilowatts to 2 megawatts of power. Six tenants have signed on, he said. The building could accommodate a total demand of up to 40 megawatts.

Construction is far enough along at the center, called Intergate Manhattan, to warrant a visit by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Verizon still uses three floors of the structure, which was built in 1975 by its corporate predecessor, the New York Telephone Company. It owns these floors outright as a condominium unit. Sabey owns the other 29 floors. Verizon pays rent to Sabey (Mr. Beckwith would not say how much) for the illuminated sign on the building’s east facade, which is highly visible from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Tenants in the data center are charged on the basis of energy demand rather than square footage. “They’re paying for capacity,” John Sasser, vice president for operations, said. “The space comes with it.” Leases typically run for 10 years.

Since acquiring the building in June 2011, Sabey has applied some hard-won knowledge to the project. For instance, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the company decided to install critical backup generators on the fourth floor, 69 feet above street level, rather than on the second floor, 23 feet above the street.

Though Sabey typically operates expansive, low-rise buildings, it found that 375 Pearl Street came with many built-in advantages, John Ford, the vice president for leasing, said. These included floors that were designed for much heavier loads than would be found in a typical office building and ample space at the north and south ends of the tower for vertical conduits and ductwork. As far as security goes, it does not hurt to have Police Department headquarters next door.

Today, there is little to record Taconic’s plan except the remnants of its marketing center on the 26th floor. There, a mock-up corner office was constructed with a glass wall facing a curved photo mural â€" almost like a cyclorama â€" depicting the Lower Manhattan skyline. It was meant to show how beautiful 375 Pearl Street would be with a new, transparent skin.

But the existing monolithic and inscrutable limestone facade suits the new owners just fine, Mr. Beckwith said. “We think it’s beautiful, as a data center.”



Van Cliburn, My Nemesis

Van Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958.Courtesy of Van Cliburn Foundation, via Associated Press Van Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958.

Dear Diary:

One of the residual scars from growing up in the ’50s and ’60s was the parental reproach, “Why can’t you be more like…”

I have no doubt the comparison was well meaning, but often enough it had the opposite effect. Of course I resented the well-behaved older sister Geraldine!; be damned the straight-A’s (pimply faced) Michael Portnoy from down the block! But these weren’t the worst, no sir! My nemeses were Van Cliburn … and Joey Parsky.

I took no comfort at the news of the great pianist’s death (“…why can’t you play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 like Van Cliburn”). But he was always paired with that other do-gooder, Golden Boy, the dreaded Joey Parsky, who took his grandmother to temple, took the garbage out to the curb, and took prizes in debate and science.

I should tell you there’s no comeuppance for Joey Parsky, who went on to be an attorney, married, had nice kids and led, presumably, a very good life. He also, years later, won the Massachusetts State Lottery, which prompted my own grandmother, on her deathbed, to say, “Why can’t YOU do that”

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via e-mail diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.



‘Downton’ Season 3 Sets PBS Record

The third season of “Downton Abbey” was even more popular than previously believed. The season’s seven episodes averaged 11.5 million viewers a week, PBS said Tuesday after it received updated Nielsen numbers that included digital video recorder playback. Earlier numbers suggested that seven million to eight million viewers had tuned in for each episode. The total audience â€" up about 65 percent from the second season â€" makes the third season of “Downton” the most popular drama ever televised by PBS. The show’s online viewership was counted separately. But there, too, a record was set: the public broadcaster said there were 900,000 video streams on the “Masterpiece” Web site the day after the Season 3 finale, the most for the site.



Waiting for Catastrophes: Aleksandar Hemon Talks About ‘The Book of My Lives’

In 1992, Aleksandar Hemon was visiting Chicago when war broke out in his home country of Bosnia. Chicago became his adopted home, and he soon became a highly praised writer of fiction. In 2004, he received a MacArthur “genius grant.” Mr. Hemon’s new book, “The Book of My Lives,” collects nonfiction pieces about his upbringing in Sarajevo and his life in America. In a recent e-mail interview, Mr. Hemon discussed displacement, visiting Sarajevo now, the purpose of art and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

You write in the book’s opening that you “have to be pressed into writing nonfiction.” Why is that

A.

I tend to wait for true stories to mature into fiction. Most of my fiction grew out of a long-germinating real-life situation. So even if there is a true story I am tempted to tell, I wait to see what it becomes after months and, often years, of being pickled in my brain. Several pieces from the book were commissioned after I told the story to an editor.

Q.

More than 20 years after moving to Chicago, do you feel like someone with two homes or do you still feel like someone displaced

A.

I have two homes like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they’re going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.

Q.

You write that “normal life” wasn’t really available to your parents when they moved to Canada, “despite all the integrationist promises.” Did you, or do you, feel the same way about America

A.

Displacement pretty much excludes what my parents and many Sarajevans call “normal life,” which is in many ways a nostalgic concept. I stopped pining for normal life a while ago. I’ll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that.

I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability â€" the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.

Q.

You say that after the war, you “excised and exterminated that precious, youthful part of me that had believed you could retreat from history and hide from evil in the comforts of art.” Does art serve a different purpose for you now Can you articulate what it is

A.

It is establishing a space for continuous dialogue. In that space our experience is deposited and recreated by storytelling or poetry so that we can fully confront it. We ought to be more lucid there, rather than tranquilized.

Q.

When was the last time you were in Sarajevo What is it like for you when you visit now

A.

A couple of years ago. Last year was the first year since 1997 that I didn’t go. Most of the time when I go back I see my many friends, so it gets intense. A lot of late nights and stories. Sometimes I go to Sarajevo to work. Last time I was there, I spent 10 days working with my friend Jasmila Zbanic on a script. We were locked up in an office 10 to 12 hours a day.

Aleksandar HemonVelibor Božović Aleksandar Hemon
Q.

In the book, you say: “I feel I am a writer only at the time of writing.” What do you feel you are the rest of the time

A.

Father, friend, soccer player, author. I think that being a writer is my vocation â€" in the original sense of the word: I was called upon to write. But not to tour or give interviews. That is external to writing and certainly not essential. If I stopped doing all that, I’d still be a writer. Perhaps even more so.

Q.

You enjoy soccer and skiing because they allow participants to “make decisions by improvising inside a vanishing moment.” Do you find a parallel sensation in the act of writing

A.

Part of the writing process I experience as something similar to going downhill at great speed, recognizing all the possibilities inherent in the momentary set of circumstances and making decisions rapidly. That is most exhilarating. But then I edit, which is when the analytical, strategic part of the mind is engaged. That is exhilarating to me as well.

Q.

You famously learned to read and write English by reading Nabokov. Were there other writers who had a strong influence on your initial efforts with the language

A.

I read a lot of Nabokov, but not exclusively Nabokov. Also, what I was trying to acquire was the English with which I could write. I already had enough conversational English, but that was not helping me with writing. I thought that writing English (as it were) should be acquired by reading, so I read a lot and eventually went to grad school so that I could read all day long. I read Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, a lot of English and American poetry, then I reread a lot of books I had read before in my native language: Chekhov, Kafka, Bulgakov, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky.

Q.

In the midst of the devastation of the final essay, about the death of your young daughter Isabel, there are some very moving descriptions of your older daughter Ella’s imagination. Do you see a writer in Ella Do you talk to her or teach her explicitly about storytelling

A.

I don’t coach her â€" not even while she plays soccer. We just let her pursue all kinds of interests. That is largely because she is a fantastically curious child. But even if I had hope or expectations for her to be a writer, I think that to be a writer one should not focus on the tricks or skill of writing. She would benefit far more from pursuing her curiosity wherever it takes her, becoming a dilettante, like her father, who knows a little bit about everything but not much about anything. Expertise is the enemy of imagination. I avoid expertise like the plague.

Q.

Are you able to share details of any fiction you might be working on at the moment

A.

Alas, no. Not because it is a secret, but because it is still fragile, and a stranger’s breath might make it go down like a toothpick Eiffel Tower.



West 22nd Street, 4:51 P.M.

Click to enlarge.Alec Tabak Click to enlarge.


West 22nd Street, 4:51 P.M.

Click to enlarge.Alec Tabak Click to enlarge.