ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI
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situation of freedom. I share their interest and their anxiety ; I am
one of them, and , at the same time I am against them, because I do
not always share their vision of literature .
Part
2:
Expression of Freedom
Now to the exile .
Is
it
different nowadays from what it was in
the past? I am quoting one of the phrases which is the starting point
of our discussion . I think that the situation of exile doesn't change its
bitter taste throughout the centuries. Now there is the telephone,
which produces an illusion that frontiers may be crossed. Of course
the state is behind it, like a film director; the totalitarian state . But
the situation of exile may produce a paradoxical effect of freedom .
You live in a foreign country and you do not belong to its society .
You are a stranger and your estrangement has its positive sides too.
Do you remember Nabokov in Berlin , writing
The Gift,
full of joy,
conscious of his creative power? Being in exile , living abroad, you
are not in touch with your friends, you are cut off from your native
city, but the reality is with you. You are with men and women, you
may contemplate trees , birds and clouds. You are free and, if you
are a writer, you may try to express your freedom . And expression of
freedom is equally as important as freedom of expression. It has
something to do with the very notion of reality. We are living in a
bizarre time, where no general notion of reality exists, no wisdom .
There are millions offacts , of bits of information , but no wisdom, no
knowledge of reality. But being in exile is not a tragic situation . Do not
despair. In the act of writing you may touch a reality that is deeper
and stronger than the everyday reality of common sense. For a short
moment you are more powerful than the emperor, who sent you
abroad , or who prevents you from coming back to your city.
It
is not
a dream only, it's not an illusion. For a moment you are the emperor,
and how rich . It is imagination that helps you. Imagination - a way
to reality, not an escape from it. The next day you may forget it, you
may lose your magical power of words and images, but for a short
time you are in the center of reality . And you communicate it, there
is a poem or an essay, beaming traces of your instantaneous knowl–
edge . Because freedom is knowledge . A very impractical knowledge,
of no use for politicians or doctors or whomever. Here is my country,
in this reality of a poem. It is our country, I would say, the writer's
country . Its citizenship may be easily obtained by everybody who
wants to read, to think, to see. To this extent I cannot be in exile,
except for these bad weeks or months , when I do not succeed in dis–
covering the reality.
