Olivera Nikolova is the best and most well-known Macedonian female prose writer. At all times, above any attempt to present her rich canon has towered the imperative of duality, of two previously drawn lines for writing a potential work of criticism or readership: a line of children’s and a line of adult literary creation. Today, when this authoress has already piled a large number of titles, awards, literary successes,… the presentation of any of her works, of almost any of her “authorial lines”, should most certainly first begin with erasure of these two overemphasised lines, and then, on a blank sheet (without lines, squares…), on a sheet where lines will unite, instead of separate, continue by resorting to writing, telling, recognising, recommending, perceiving, sharing… The duality of this notable creation has thus imposed itself due to the fact that Nikolova began with and nurtured children’s literature for a long time, and only later, as an already established outstanding narrator, did she focus on adult literature. But this is only seemingly true, this is mere observation of matters, and, as the authoress herself says, observation alone cannot be (literary) truth, without “the warm hand of fantasy”. Therefore she, together with her “warm hand of fantasy”, is the best rubber for erasing the abovementioned two overemphasised lines of interpretation.
In the period between “Zoki Poki”(1963) and “Narrow Door” (1983), i.e. from the first children’s book to the first adult novel by Olivera Nikolova, which opens her vast field of novels, we are obliged to remind ourselves of another work, a slightly forgotten short story collection, “A Day for Summer Holiday”, which is in fact Nikolova’s first adult fiction work, published soon after “Zoki Poki”, in 1964. Hence, the second line, the adult line, was highlighted and parallel nearly from the very beginning of the authoress’s creation, and not 20 years later (1963 – 1983). “The eye” of her loyal readers could peep into it even at a time when the line of adult fiction seemed barely visible.
Moreover, the road from “Zoki Poki” to “The White Smoke”, from the cult work about the “new child” in modern Macedonian prose to the latest novel published in 2009, is a real potpourri of titles, concepts, experiments, prose investigations and characters, almost mathematical proofs of the existence of only one time – the literary! Title after title adds to it, almost every year (at times even more often!). The grand success of “Zoki Poki” (the cult book of the modern Macedonian children’s literature, translated in 9 languages: Serbian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Czech, Italian, Slovenian, Turkish, Albanian and German) is followed by the prose children’s books: “The Country Where One Can’t Arrive” (1965), “Sad Cheerful Vladimir” (1984), “Boris’s Camera” (1989), “An Eye that Thinks, An Ear that Sees” (2005), children’s novels: “The Secret of the Yellow Suitcase” (1965), “Winter Detectives” (1972), “The Friends Bon and Bona” (1974, translated in Serbian and Slovakian), “My Sound” (1977, translated in Serbian), “Loveaches” (1988), “The Crossing is not Lit” (1990), “Stone Ciphers” (1993), “White Footsteps” (1993), “Light Year” (1998), adult novels: “Narrow Door” (1983), “Homeworks” (1989), “The Thrombus” (1997), “Adam’s Rib” (2000), “Variations for Ibn Pajko” (2001), “Rosica’s Dolls” (2004), “The White Smoke” (2009), adult short story collections: “A Day for Summer Holiday” (1964), “Left Chamber” (2008), the book of drama writings: “The Silver Apple” (1998), two picture-books, theatrical, TV and radio plays for children and adults…
Nikolova is a multiple winner of significant literary awards for her works: she has had three wins of the award of RTV Skopje and Struga Poetry Evenings, in 1966 for “The Country Where One Can’t Arrive”, in 1975 for “The Friends Bon and Bona” and in 1978 for “My Sound” (this novel has won her another award – “Mlado Pokolenje”, the same year), the prestigious Zmaj Award in 1983 for special accomplishments in the contemporary expression of children’s literature. As regards adult literature, Nikolova has collected almost all the important national awards for her novels: MAW’s “Stale Popov” for “Narrow Door” in 1983, Racin Award for “Adam’s Rib” in 2000, Novel of the Year of “Utrinski Vesnik” for “Rosica’s Dolls” in 2004.
If we try to formulate some kind of a general definition of Olivera Nikolova’s literature after all these well-known and repeatedly emphasised facts/truths, this is how it would roughly sound: A committed prose investigation of the unfamiliar in order to discover a cure for the painful “familiar”…
A Feature of the Literary Writing: “Preparation for the Novel”
Through all of the adult novels she has published so far, Olivera Nikolova has integrated herself in the contemporary Macedonian adult prose patiently, with dedication and with ever greater poetic clarity, as a naratress with a fitting construction of her current massive literary structure, but also with a capacity to sustain what yet remains to be added/created. It no longer comes as a surprise that the novels of this notable authoress thrust themselves into fervent, yet quite varied themes of the wide spectrum of spaces and times around us, so the feature of her literary work is already crystal clear and can be most simply called: investigation, i.e. “preparation for the novel”. This is what unites her various novels, since, regardless whether Nikolova writes about religious aspects, about football, about law or history, more recent or more remote, the writer in her is always preceded by the dedicated investigator. In her poetics it is almost unimaginable to write about herself (autobiographically) and about what she knows (biographically), as Nikolova understands the world best only after she has passed the remote, the unfamiliar and the unknown through the sieve of comprehension (investigation), and then, once more, through the fine sieve of her gift, of course, with “the warm hand of fantasy”. By presenting the novel “Variations for Ibn Pajko” in greater width, the aim is to capture the greatness and the volume of that which is simply named “preparation”: the minute investigation and study of what might at least remotely touch upon the “future story”, the dedicated “learning” of crafts (for instance, making combs in “The Thombus” and dolls in “Rosica’s Dolls”), of professions (the “legal” aspect of “Adam’s Rib”), of countries, geographies, maps (for instance, the fascinating precision of Vienna streets, of “the spirit of the city” in “Light Year”, yet Olivera Nikolova has never set foot in Austria!), of history… Certainly, the latter merely supports Nikolova’s narrating merits; by highlighting and distinguishing the “preparation” as a recognisable feature of her writing, in no way do we intend to bring it down only to that. On the contrary, we distinguish it as “material” on which the authoress is yet to lay her “warm hand of fantasy”, transforming/uniting knowledge and talent in true prose art.
“Variations for Ibn Pajko” – “Isn’t it wonderful when everything blends together?”
The “preparation” is also present in “Variations for Ibn Pajko”, the novel that appeared only a year after “Adam’s Rib” and, unfortunately, seemed to have been left (undeservedly) in the shadow of its predecessor. This is exactly why, wishing to remedy the injustice that this novel has suffered, we will consider it in greater detail, without neglecting the great success of “Adam’s Rib”, but merely avoiding it on this occasion. “Variations for Ibn Pajko” confirms the impression that the authoress has wholly dedicated herself to supporting the thesis that writers are equally entitled to both the time they live in and the time science refers to as past. What was in “Adam’s Rib” merely presented as an authorial intention and a commitment to proving that there is only one time (the literary!), in “Variations for Ibn Pajko” grows into an evident confirmation of equating the times both in terms of their value, and of the essence they convey. History, as a string of truths arranged according to the taste of a certain context of events, has never lost its trait of the universal, the repetitive, the obligatory of something which is the nucleus and the heart of any purport. This very nucleus is the unifying element of the three stories in “Variations for Ibn Pajko” through which this prose functions as a novel. In fact this is a triple novel where three authentic character couples united in One by means of the religious context in which they are set. Namely, both Marko (“in whose soul there is a silver wire that never rusts”) and Kalija, both “Petre the Spry” and Todora, both Sandri and Hatiçe, build walls between and around themselves by changing their religion (all three of them convert to Islam for different reasons!), and by converting back to their own, Christian, religion, only after their deaths. This is the unifying moment, that which enables the text to be a novel. What, on the other hand, enables the novel to be high, true literature is more complex and consists of several levels: the structure, the organisation of the parallel, though disrupted course of life of the character couples, the archaic language that contributes to capture completely the time period in question (before universalising it, time must be first defined in the most precise manner and with the most precise linguistic/lexical “services”), as well as the subtlety in narration – the independent parts constantly nearing each other, and yet remaining distant enough, so as not to blend in One prematurely! Olivera Nikolova has organised this novel in four parts, each consisting of three chapters (one for each story or I: 1, 2, 3; II: 1, 2, 3; III: 1, 2, 3; IV: 1, 2, 3) and in this strict division, in which one quite quickly grasps that all the first chapters refer to Marko and Kalija, all the second to Petre and Todora, and the third to Sandri and Hatice, she has succeeded in realising her concept of presenting before us three literary “assumptions” (she herself calls them “variations”) regarding the existence of an abandoned building in our city, called Ibn Pajko. At the very beginning the authoress writes that in historical documents the certain Pajko can also be found as Bajko and as Tajko and she utilises this imprecision as an impetus for literary filling up and justifying the concessions and imprecisions of the past, of history, of the time that represents a tail of the present. The story sets forth from the historical fact that between the 15th and 16th centuries there lived a certain Pajko (Bajko or Tajko) who converted to Islam, and it continues through Olivera Nikolova’s variations in which she “accompanies the unknown, ties herself to it” in order to give birth to the known “as a child of truth”, and it finishes by establishing the One of times, the One of truth where the pain of all being flows. If we emphasise that, in the novel, Marko is in fact Ibn Pajko, Petre – Ibn Bajko, and Sandre – Ibn Tajko, then we entirely close the circle of Olivera Nikolova’s impressive novel that frees the past of guilt before the strict judgement of the present. On the road towards bringing together the three individualized parts of the novel (“Variations for Ibn Pajko” needs not be read continuously, but rather, once the structure has been discovered, it can be read according to the choice of the reader without jeopardising the consistency of the prose intention), Nikolova masterly compels us to answer “yes” to her key autoreferential question from page 28: “Isn’t it wonderful when everything blends together”?
Olivera Nikolova, “authoress of Zoki Poki”?
It is an indisputable fact that many people in Macedonia are still unfamiliar with the name of Olivera Nikolova (let alone her work!), but it appears that there is no child, now or ever, that does not know of “the authoress of “Zoki Poki””. This syntagma has always been and remained a synonym, an absolute equivalent of the writer Olivera Nikolova, though, as we know, “Zoki Poki” was the first book she published long ago, in 1963. The number of works published after “Zoki Poki” seems to have coalesced in this marker-name, this reference point in modern Macedonian children’s literature, so that, year by year, decade by decade, “Zoki Poki” grew bigger, began to involve so many things (including the authoress’s narrative poetics!) that today it seems entirely adequate to alternate between her real name and the apposition “the authoress of “Zoki Poki”” used on its own, as a “legitimate” subject. Olivera Nikolova has been and always remains the same as “the authoress of “Zoki Poki”” (despite most of her later characters that grew into “milestones” in the development of world literature), primarily since the novelty, the difference, the otherness that she had achieved with her first writing remained so distinct and clear that even the next 45 years could not blur it in the least, and, in fact, we believe that the next 45 will not blur it either. Also, according to the official literary criticism (in both of the existent histories of Macedonian children’s literature – that of Muris Idrizovič and that of Miodrag Drugovac), the work is referred to as “a classic work of Macedonian children’s literature”, “a work with a new tone (…) which widens and enriches the overall harmony, (…) a literary renewal without radical changes in the genealogical tree of literature, based on a dialectically viewed process of the new, of the unexpected” (Drugovac, Miodrag. Macedonian Literature for Children and Youths. Skopje: Detska Radost, 1996. 334).
Still, when you have already left an imprint of such kind and size in the literature to which you belong, it can only be expected of you to leave the same imprint on your own (literary) writing. Olivera Nikolova’s imprint is called Zoki Poki, and he stands sovereignly even in her later, most famous novels. She remains “the authoress of “Zoki Poki”” evermore, because Zoki Poki never excludes anyone, on the contrary, he constantly includes every “new” Macedonian child.