Iztok Osojnik: Svinje letijo v nebo
176 pp.
Paperback
Year: 2012
Published by Polica Dubova Cultural and Artistic Association
ISBN 978-961-92946-9-7
Price: regular 19 €, with discount 17 €
At each "animal farm" there are also some marginalized people, who notwithstanding the terror reveal its hidden truth. Primož Truba – the protagonist of Osojnik’s travelogue-fantasy novel Pigs fly to the sky – is one of them. His marginalization is not so much a personal choice, as a result of crossing the frames which are put before him by the society and the policy of the country in which he lives. Country is ruled by a corrupt clique which has been able to come to power and by repeating its lies gradually establish the lies as the truth and has managed to invert the value system. In a society where consumerism and crime have been driven to extremes, the boundaries between the public and private spheres are completely erased: also the private life is strictly controlled and publicly prosecuted. The reason for the condemnation of Primož Truba and ritual lynch of his image, carried out in his absence, under the guise of a conviction because of the unconventional love affair with his cousin Tanja, it is his not accepting the criminal violence and corrupt rulers.
The name the main character alludes to the originator of Slovenian book, Primož Trubar, and indirectly to the one of the first books arson in the world, which has already taken place in Ljubljana in the 1600. This is no coincidence. Primož Truba is a the creator of a specific language. Language that establishes the world, so that it can exist, live. How to understand, in the light of life, what rigid frames of (Slovenian) traditional attitudes to language mean, that does not allow any deviations from the prescriptive norms and radically subvert and obstruct – once at the stake, but today with modern, internalized forms – all live creativity? Why writer’s experiential world which is mirrored in the language is supposed to adapt to restrictive commandments adventure canon, which equates the rise of the Himalayas with a walk to the Ljubljana castle? The same applies to other, more comprehensive relations between people or for love, leaving the old, traditional forms. These are the threads that weave and rebuilding the fabric of the novel.
The novel Pigs fly to the sky is definitely the book of passion. Not only the passion of the impossible love affair between Truba and his cousin Tanja, or liberal passions of a marginalized rebellious, but passions in general, passion of writing and passion of life. This passion can never be drained, because it also drives a man to get out and, regardless of the regime at "Animal Farm", whose totalitarian project, despite his crime, ultimately always fails.
Iztok Osojnik born 1951 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a poet, fiction writer, literary scientist, essayist, editor, translator, artist, tour director, mountain climber. He graduated in Comparative Literature at the University of Ljubljana (1977). Postgraduate studies at Osaka Gaidai University (1980–1982). PhD in historical anthropology at the University of Koper. He is the former director of the International Literary Festival Vilenica and currently runs The Golden Boat International Poetry Translation Workshop. So far he published 26 collections of poetry, 4 novels and 3 volumes of essays on literature, anthropology, and philosophy.
He published four books of poetry in English: Alluminations (City Gallery of Arts of Ljubljana), a collection of poetry And Some Things Happen for the First Time (Modry Peter, Canada 2001), Mister Today (Jacaranda Press, California 2004) and New and Selected Poems (Sampark, New Delhi 2010). His poems and essays were translated and published in 25 languages. He was awarded several national and international literary awards, most recently the International Literary Award KONS (2011).