Dzevad Karahasan

Dzevad Karahasan, whom readers, writers and critics consider one of the greats of contemporary European literature, thinks that the division into genres of (not only) his novels is dated and old-fashioned; he considers almost every contemporary novel to be a genre cocktail. But there are some old-fashioned things that this author can't resist, and one of them is writing with a fountain pen.

I think that it is partially a matter of habit, as I have written this way from the very beginning, and eventually habit becomes second nature. In my case, hand-writting is also a key element of concentration. I've noticed that some text that requires expertise (such as a presentation in which I speak only from my own knowledge) I can write on a typewriter or a computer. But texts for which I need maximum concentration, where I speak with my whole being – through knowledge, emotion, experience, premonitions and dreams – and lines that belong to my characters and not to me, I can only write by hand, using a fountain pen. My letters become dreadfully tiny on those occasions – when I am truly focused, I write three lines of words in one line of a notebook. No one on earth but me would later be able to transpose them.