WORD – DOING AND UNDOING (MEŠA SELIMOVIĆ’S DERVISH AND THE DEATH)
WORD – DOING AND UNDOING (MEŠA SELIMOVIĆ’S DERVISH AND THE DEATH)

Summary/Abstract: Alongside rebellion and knowledge, the word is another tenor of M. Selimović’s book Dervish and the Death, mediating the other two in a Kafkian atmosphere which is transposed in the Balkans, where the culprit and his family are not distinctly made known their fault. The character of Ahmed Nurudin, the dervish of a tekke in Sarajevo belonging to the Mevlev order, on the one hand-relates to the protective world of the tekke in a certain way, the latter giving him limited, yet probingly deep knowledge of a particular section of life and, on the other hand, in a different way to the wide world, which he starts to decode and perpetuate through words. Thus, knowledge becomes a form of undoing a way of life, nevertheless this unraveling of a life style occurs in order that he might see beyond the restrictive boundaries of his narrow world. His becoming a new being comes about through violent disruptions which are generated by events of similar violence: murder in broad daylight, unjust sentence to death and the premature death of a son to his father as well as a father’s death to his son.

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