456
MILOVAN DJILAS
INT: So you could have made a living just by writing?
DJILAs: Yes, probably I would have. Maybe I would have taken some
other job also, but not as a professor, not as a teacher.
INT: Haven't you also taught?
D JILAS: I was a student of literature.
INT: But you also taught at the university.
DJILAS: No. I didn't finish the university. I am a teacher of revolu-
tion. I am a professional revolutionary, half intellectual.
INT: But when you were in the States, didn't you teach at Princeton?
D JILAS: I lectured on the problems I wrote about in my last book.
INT: How long did you stay in the States?
DJILAS: About two months, a little less. I was in New York and at
Princeton.
INT: With what department?
DJILAS: At Princeton with the Woodrow Wilson School.
It
is a school
of social problems, of politics. It is a good school, well organized.
INT: So, these days writing creatively is your main concern?
D JILAS: Yes.
INT: What authors have influenced you most?
D JILAS: Dostoevski, probably, and our popular poet Negos.
INT: I see, that the "gusle" appears in some of your stories. Have you
been influenced by folk poetry? Have you read that book by Alfred
Lord,
The Singer of Tales?
DJILAs: No, I don't know that book. I have been influenced by folk
poetry in the use of the language and probably in some other aspects,
but not completely.
INT: You talk about the
Leper
as a legend.
D JILAS: Yes, half invented and half real.
INT: But the story is not written in the language of the people. The
language is very literary, the craft. . . .
DJILAS: No, no, no. I used the popular language but only as one of
the elements. My language is not only popular; it is my own lan–
guage, my personal language.
INT: Yes, that
is
obvious. With your last book, though, my feeling
was that you were dealing directly with philosophy. Are you going to
deal with problems at a purely philosophical level?
D JILAS: No, never. I hope not.
INT; I was wondering. Because you are a realistic person, but at the
same time I was surprised to find in your last book this concern with
ideology in a rather abstract way.
DJILAs: Did I? I have spent a lifetime participating in the affairs of
my country, because I was born in Communism and fought as a
(
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