I talked with Goran Mrakić about Timisoara, music and stories from the garage. The book was published by Nemira Publishing House in the N’Autor collection.

My beginnings of prose are related somehow to the former Forum of Polytechnic Timisoara, which was very rich in topics of discussion. Some were harassing their talent, but most were satire writings. If one day one of the people out there tells me that if you want to publish a prose book I help you. That was in 2006. We met by chance a few years ago and asked if I had written anything. And I say yes, but for me. And he says, gives me a read. I gathered what I had in a coherent form. They were the first prose to appear in the Punk Requiem.

When the book appeared I was very pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reactions. Some people contacted me. It was a very strange feeling. The book now (no. Stories in the garage) is a more mature continuation of Punk Requiem. Here I talked more about texts and I had a plan, an organization, it was not accidental.

I had a friend, a great lover of American literature who said to me: “I am most glad you took out these books because I fell in love with New York reading a lot about the city. And I kept trying to come up with a little thing about Timisoara. ”I said I would make a book that I would be curious about even if I didn’t write it. I thought if I saw the book in a bookstore, would I buy the book? Starting from here, I searched for topics that were interesting. A book about the backstage of the city, about places you don’t see if you go for a day or two. Characters you do not meet in a short visit.

The Underground of each city attracted me.

As a writer no, I have as a person. I sit at home on my laptop and write. When it comes, when it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

I am also disgusted with the new intellectuality of left or right, innocent, false and opportunistic even to the bone marrow. It gives me the impression that it is made up of polyphenics that would fit into anyone’s rectum for a function, for a commission, for a leaf, for an invitation to a more important cultural event. Stories from the garage

I don’t think it’s translated into Romanian. It is the book of a guy from Bosnia, Meša Selimović, he has a very fine novel, Dervis and Death. I think it’s in the top 3 at least for me.

Very simple, I lived only on the Vares-Timișoara relationship, that is the village where I am and Timișoara-where I moved to the 9th class. Generally the Banat plain area, I can’t imagine another place. This is my place of birth, all my graves are buried there. It is a place that I am linked to all points of view. I find it very hard to believe that I could live and work anywhere else. I like to visit, but to leave there, willingly, I would never leave. Banat is holy to me.

Did they know at that time about history? They disembarked like drawer rockers, from the darkness of the decks, on a night of broken tares, and stopped the trams in an increasingly crowded station of death. Stories from the garage

Goran Mrakić (b. 1979) was born in Sannicolau Mare. He has published two volumes of verse, three books of satirical aphorisms and one volume of short prose, Punk requiem. He received the award of the Writers’ Union from Timisoara for his debut, the “Vladimir Bulatović VIB” prize and the “Radoje Domanović” prize. His writings have appeared in several anthologies of aphorisms in Serbia, Romania, Bosnia, Spain, Lebanon and Italy. He translated several books from Romanian into Serbian (and vice versa). He worked for 15 years as editor of the Serbian language newspaper Naša reč. Currently, he is the director of the Publishing House of the Union of Serbs in Romania. He lives and works in Timisoara.