How much research did you need to do for your novel?
I’d been a soldier in Bosnia, first with the French Foreign Legion, then with the Bosnian government troops. So I was already quite familiar with the wartime situation and what it looked, smelled and sounded like over there.
I knew how the local people speak, and I understood their culture and mindset. I’d never been to Srebrenica, though, so I read and double-checked many details from UN reports, old news articles, the International Criminal Court’s proceedings and such.
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?
Not really. It doesn’t, of course, mean that the stuff I write is always publishable. But if I truly got stuck, I guess I’d just tell myself not to try so hard. You don’t always need to aim high. Take the pressure off yourself, and it’ll work out.
What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. He wrote it during the interwar period. Later he was banished because of his antisemitic polemics, but the Journey’s nihilistic outlook on society still rings like an eerie warning bell. Let me quote from it, and please tell me if this sounds vaguely familiar today:
“Lying, f—ing, dying. A law had just been passed prohibiting all other activity. The lies that were being told surpassed the imagination, far exceeded the limits of the absurd and preposterous … Everybody was doing it.
In competition, to see who could lie the most outrageously. Soon there wasn’t a bit of truth in the city. The little that had been left in 1914, people were ashamed of now. Everything you touched was fake … everything you read, swallowed, sucked, admitted, proclaimed, refuted, defended was made up of hate-ridden myths and grinning masquerades, phony to the hilt. The mania for telling lies and believing them is as contagious as the itch.”
Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?
I think anybody can write. Should they, that’s another question.
How do you use social media as an author?
I’ve done a couple of blog tours, but that’s about it. I’m not really on any social media. If anyone wants to reach out to me, they can always do so through my website.
For information about Jani’s book tour and giveaway, click the link.
