Wentworth Proposal

From the Catholic South of Flannery O'Connor to the isolation of Chekhov's Russia to the Los Angeles found in Raymond Chandler, specific geographies profoundly impact the world of literature. How does the sense of place reveal itself in literature? What happens to that literature if the place suffers a massive transformation? Between 1992 and 1995, the various regions that had once been Yugoslavia disintegrated into separate counties—separate ideologies—and entered into the most brutal war in Europe since the era of Nazi Germany. This loss of one place and formation of others had a deep and scarring effect on the work of many writers, and that effect is something that has not been explored very much in the 15 years since Yugoslavia was replaced by Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia (as well as Slovenia and Herzegovina), and I would travel to that area, speak directly with several authors and journalists who survived the vicious nationalism that swept the Balkans in the 1990s, as well as meet some of the next generation of writers, who have grown up in the post-Yugoslavia years.

I would visit Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia; this would cover three major centers of the conflict and give a round perspective to the national and religious ideologies that were involved in the conflict. This would be a journey of discovery, not of pressing forth an agenda about who was right or wrong or even how it happened. I have already written several essays and short stories about the Siege of Sarajevo (which have received literary awards from Writer's Digest Magazine and North Carolina's Press 53), and wish to explore first-hand, this area that has so fascinated me for many years. Following a journey there, I intend to complete a longer work of fiction that would address the human side of tragedy—both its horror and the small bits of humor and compassion that reveal what it is to be a human being.

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