Gabrijela Rukelj Krašković and Stefan Hertmans Featured in Festival’s “Double Portrait”

Two novels met in the “Double Portrait” program at the Festival of World Literature: Gabrijela Rukelj Krašković’s “In the House and Garden There Were Many Flowers” and “Dius” by Flemish-Belgian writer Stefan Hertmans.

In “Dius,” published by Fraktura in Romana Peričinec’s Croatian translation, Hertmans tells the story of an unusual friendship between Professor Anton and his student Dius. Anton reflects on and interprets art, while Dius experiences and creates it intuitively, almost physically. Their friendship gradually changes the teacher-student relationship. Anton begins learning from Dius, and while recounting the student’s life, he discovers his own portrait.

Hertmans said he taught at an academy of fine arts for 40 years and had seen many students. Teaching art and aesthetics, he noted, differs from other forms of education. “Students try to make something and bring you their own problems, and theory very often does not help them. What helps them is that you go through trial and error with them,” he said.

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Students try to make something and bring you their own problems, and theory very often does not help them. What helps them is that you go through trial and error with them.

He described a recurring student journey: many believe they are geniuses in their first year, fall into depression in their second, and begin searching for their own expression in the third. By the fourth year, some produce work that completely astonishes their professors, even though they never intended to become what people call great artists. Hertmans said this transformation inspired the novel. He also said the book moves from a slow, meditative opening to a faster plot and a catastrophic ending after Anton and Dius spend 20 years apart. He drew that shift between slow and fast scenes from painting and film.

Moderator Leila Topić said household inventory becomes a kind of syntax in Rukelj Krašković’s autofictional debut. Marles kitchen furniture, Zepter cookware, lace curtains, religious paintings, and plastic or real flowers stop being decoration and become material witnesses to a life that concealed its discomfort beneath a perfectly polished surface. Topić praised the author’s short, precise prose, saying the house turns into a text and the text into a partly open house. Rukelj Krašković said she wrote the novel for herself and a few people closest to her, including friends and her husband Denis, but found that the story could reach readers.

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Some of them in their fourth year, although they never intended to become what we call great artists, make something that completely astonishes you.