A literary evening organized by the “Čigoja” publishing house, dedicated to the publication of the translation of the book “Đoković: Odbijam, rat zvezde” (2022) by the great French writer Patrick Besson, was held this night in the “Amerikana” hall of the Belgrade Youth Center.
Apart from the author, literary translators – Tatjana Šotra and Dr. Miloš Konstantinović, publisher of Žarko Čigoja, spoke about the book, while the moderator of the special conversation with Besson was Meliha Pravdić, editor of Radio Belgrade 2.
The book analyzes some of the well-known inconveniences that happened to Novak Djokovic at the beginning of this year at the world championship in Australia.
“There is a great irony in this whole case. Novak previously won the Australian Open nine times, and then suddenly they don’t allow him to play there anymore. He considered Australia his country, and overnight he became unwelcome there,” Besson shared his first impressions about that case that shook the whole world, not only the sports sphere.
The reputable French publishing house “Louison éditions” published this month the new book “Djokovic, I refuse” (Djokovic, Le Refuse), and the domestic publishing house “Čigoja štampa” from Belgrade published a work about our most successful tennis player in the “Dissident” edition. .
“Novak then found himself in prison, that is, he could not move outside of that accommodation, which is incredible, and all because he was not vaccinated against Kovid 19. So he was prevented from participating in the tournament and doing what he is so successful at, the best in the whole world,” said Patrick Besson, known throughout the world as a fighter for the preservation of true traditional values.
Besson pointed out that he himself was then confused as to why Novak took such a risk of not getting vaccinated when he knew that it could have huge problems and consequences, not only in Australia, but throughout the world in the era of the corona virus pandemic.
“Then, from that moment on, I thoroughly began to take an interest in and later research everything that was happening around him, read about him, about others, what they say about the greatest tennis player, what he says about himself, and I realized in the end that it was the only correct decision that Novak could have made: not to vaccinate,” Besson said.
As a great friend of Serbia, he is very involved in the French and Serbian public, especially in the defense of the Serbian people in the period from 1995 to 2000, which begins with the book published in France – “Cry against the slanderers of Serbia” (1995).
“Many did not understand that Novak’s body as a top athlete is not like us ordinary people, because the way he eats is different from our diet, and that is why he refused to undergo treatment such as vaccination. Again, I am sure that Novak would made the same decision and that he is from the Netherlands, Norway, Spain. He simply did not want to introduce something untested into his sports body,” believes Besson and adds that it has nothing to do with the fact that he is a Serb.
He assessed that Novak’s “No” was very difficult, that it shook the world, especially because everyone else agreed to get vaccinated against Kovid, and the Serbian tennis player resolutely refused.
“Novak Djokovic was the image of Serbia for so many years – a symbol of happiness, the goodness of friendship, and then it happened. And then the whole planet started to look at Serbia with contempt again, because someone who until then was the pride of the world could now by his actions threatens that same planet,” analyzed Besson and noted how strongly his decision resonated in the world and was interpreted and accepted differently.
The French writer believes that the “icing on the cake” was also the fact that the Serb was a not at all happy circumstance at that moment, and his human right, according to him, is completely in place to refuse vaccination.
Besson wrote more than 80 books as a very prolific writer, the author of notable novels and books of stories such as “The Gift”, “The Sloth”, “The Art of Seduction”, “The Villa of Don Quixote”, “State of Mind”, “The Rich Woman”, “Belgrade City “, “Brabanovi”, “Srđan”, “Milos and Milena and Julia and Isak”, “Titanika”, “Pushkin’s death”, “Christ’s grave”, “Certain Melancholy”, “Romanes from my youth” and many others.
Once upon a time, he trained tennis himself, as he revealed tonight, from the age of eight to 19.
“During those 10 or so years, I placed poorly. Then I played tennis with my son every year in the countryside, as if for fun, for the sake of recreation. And my son, when he was 12 years old, always beat me 6:1. He even and for that one of me was angry, he wanted to be 6:0. That’s when I put the racket down and decided never to play tennis again,” Besson recounted this awkward episode with a smile.
He says that then and later, watching the matches, he concluded that “tennis requires aggressiveness and in some way violence against oneself”.
“The tennis player is alone against himself and the one with whom he is fighting for the title, he wants to win, defeat and “kill” him, but in fact he is alone in the world, it is an individual sport. This brings the tennis player closer to the writer, because both are alone in their to the world while they create,” concluded Patrick Besson on the topic of his book about Novak Djokovic.
The publisher Žarko Čigoja saw the whole case surrounding Novak Djokovic as an extraordinary idea of freedom, i.e. the defense of freedom, and agreed with Besson that the world-class Serbian tennis player had the right to do so in Australia this year.
“It is Besson’s courage to enter this topic, because Novak has always been a symbol of everything beautiful and successful. The whole story of his career, which can be seen in the book, is how to achieve a goal and ultimately remain one’s own. Whatever religion, nationality, a person has the right as a human being to defend what he is,” Čigoja noted and revealed that two Serbian publishing houses did not want to publish this book about Djokovic, but he did not name them.
As a great connoisseur, enlightened analyst and critic of globalist movements in the world, political, economic and socio-cultural problems, in the new book Besson says about the tennis player that he appeared on the face of the earth at the worst moment, but also at the best for a savior – during the Balkan wars (1992-1999).
For the first time in Europe, after many years, the word “Serbian” was accompanied by laudatory adjectives: sports commentators could not say otherwise.
“Roland Garros is not a stadium, it’s a temple. Novak is not a player, he is a priest. Novak is a Gemini, just like Pushkin he was, and they both write in the same way: fast and well,” wrote Besson in the new book, where he stated how are spectators of tennis matches and amateur painters who come to watch a Michelangelo in shorts paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel.
“He said No, and that “No” was so loud. It would rather be said that “NO” was just a whisper, but the whisper of a giant made a huge noise,” wrote Patrick Besson.
