Sasa Milivojev

Background

Sasa Milivojev was born on April 19, 1986 in Zrenjanin, Central Banat District, Serbia. Now he lives in the United Arab Emirates.

Education

After ten years of enjoying music, Milivojev turned towards the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University in Belgrade, Serbia, where he is a successful student of the Serbian Language and Literature.

Career

Sasa is the author of four collections of poems: „Tajna Iza Uzdaha“ („The Secret Behind a Sigh“, published in 2006 by Narodna Knjiga, Belgrade), „Prvi Put“ („The First Time“, published in 2008 by Kulturno-Prosvetna Zajednica, Kruševac, 2008), „Kad Svitac Odleti“ („When the Firefly is Gone“, in Serbian, English and Arabic, Filip Višnjić, Belgrade, 2010), „Ljubavni receipt“ (Kulturno-Prosvetna Zajednica, Kruševac, 2010), and a novel entitled „Dečak is Žute Kuće“ („The Boy from the Yellow House“). He has received many awards, and his poems are included in several anthologies of poetry, including the „Panonski Galeb“ („The Seagull of Pannonia“) Vol. XIX, the „Rudnička Vrela“ („The Rudnik Springs“) Vol. XIX, the „Garavi Sokak“ („The Sooty Alley“) Vol. XIX, etc.

Since 2008 Milivojev has worked as a contributor to the „Pogledi“ column of the Politika newspaper, and as of 2009 Sasa has been writing columns in the Pravda newspaper, dealing with analytical and synthetic research in the recent and contemporary history of the Serbian people. Concerned with war crimes topics, Milivojev has been praised by many, but also criticized by individuals who do not share his political views and who often accused him of manipulating the readership and spreading „hate speech“. By 2009 Milovojevs texts have been printed in about 3 million copies in various daily newspapers. He was one of the most read columnists in Serbia in 2008, 2009 and the victim of the variety of political manipulation. From the shadow, he influenced very important decisions of political leadership. His ideas are stolen by politicians and secret service via SMS. For example, Mr. Saša Milivojev is a political thirst strike idea creator and professional destroyer of rating. He is engaged in political dramaturgy, both in literature and in reality.

His poetic achievements have been introduced to Belgrade audience twice, in Ethnographic Museum, in collaboration with famous Serbian artists such as Isidora Bjelica, Ivana Žigon, Jelena Žigon, Daliborka Stojšić, Eva Ras, Danijel Pavlović, Žiza Stojanović, Zlata Numanagić, Branka Veselinovicć. His poetry was recited by well-known actresses Svetlana Bojković, Ruzica Sokić, Danica Aćimac, Snežana Savic, Suzana Mančić etc. By their mutual cooperation, this young author has also been supported by Olja Ivanjicki, Zdravko Šotra, and Marko Novaković.

He has his poetic fans all over the world. Kairo reading public was introduced with his poetry in May 2010., by his book „When the Firefly is Gone“, while he was being present at various literary gathering where famous writers spoke about him: Soha Zaky and Alaa Al Aswany (one of the most famous writers in the world, a founder of oppositional and political movement „Kifaya“). In Saudi Arabia, the journalists write about his love for God; in Egyptian newspaper (Al Akhbar and Shashati), Saša Milivojev is mentioned as a writer of mystical flight and meditation.

The first copies of the shocking novel “The Boy from the Yellow house” - were gifted in 2012. by the author Saša Milivojev to Serbian politicians: to the prime minister and the minister of police Ivica Dačić; to the President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić; also to Nenad Čanak, Milanka Karić, Oliver Dulić... The Russian ambassador in Serbia Aleksandar Konuzin also received a copy. The legendary Lieutenant General of Yugoslav People's Army Stevan Mirković came to meet the young author on Kalemegdan on the occasion of the handover of the novel. Saša Milivojev also gave the copy to a judge of the Belgian Public Prosecutor's Office...

Although only 200 copies were printed at the cost of the author, a student of literature, the novel "The Boy from the Yellow House" was widely reported across the world in 2012. Readers and diplomatic circles around the world were shocked. Timur Blohin and Jovana Vukotić are the most important journalists mentioned in the biography of Saša Milivojev because he achieved worldwide media success through their cooperation. His interview given to THE VOICE OF RUSSIA was translated into English, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, German, Polish, Russian, French, Serbian, Albanian, Turkish, Hungarian, Macedonian and published in the Brazilian press, in Somalia, on the front page of Toronto Newspapers, then in prominent media such as: The Oslo Times; Ukrainian Telegraph; Armenia Today; Radio Television of Republic of Srpska; Dal (Belarus), Barometer (Kyrgyzstan); Bota Sot (Albania), Glas Srpske; Rajoni Press (Albanian Information Agency); Ukrainian Phrase; Pravda and Blic (Serbia); Gazeta Shqiptare; Srna (Information Agency of Republic of Srpska); Lajme Shqip (Albania); Beauty and Health (Serbia); Press Online (BiH); News Meeting (Turkey); Franco da Rocca News; Ruskije Novosti.

The interview was published on countless internet portals and in newspapers around the world and was also picked up by the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI subsequently spoke to the world against the trafficking of human organs.

As a consequence, Saša Milivojev has had big problems with discrimination in the Serbian media, but it is undeniable that he leaves an indelible mark with his name and photos being instantly recognizable in Serbia with his published titles even used in crosswords.

Achievements

• Sasa is one of the most read columnists in Serbia, he is the author of five books, and numerous columns published in various daily newspapers.
  
  Sasa nurtured his many talents in the Music Gymnasium. He used to sing in the „King David“ Oratorio by Arthur Honegger in the Arad Philharmonic Orchestra, Romania.

Personality

Multi-talented, charismatic, a fearless truth speaker and brilliant political analyst with complete disrespect to authorities, a poet, a songwriter and singer, an intriguing star in rising amazing intellectual circles, astonishing diplomatic circles, fascinating political establishment, provoking, unpredictable.

Physical Characteristics: Extremely handsome, very charismatic, weird, beautiful, blonde hair, blue eyes.

Quotes from others about the person

• Daliborka Stojšić (ex-Miss of the former Yugoslavia).
  
  When I first saw a photograph of Saša Milivojev in a newspaper, my lips spontaneously whispered: Tadzio! It was a reaction to his angelic beauty Daliborka Stojšićof the kind that once mesmerized me when I read Death in Venice as part of the preparation of a paper entitled The Novellas of Thomas Mann at the World Literature Department of the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade.
  
  The Hellenic, Apollonian beauty of the young Pole that I recognized on his face, is often unaware of itself. It belongs to the kind so agonizingly loved by Thomas Mann, to those blue-eyed and simple creatures that need no spirit. It also conforms to Schiller’s principle of the naïve, as opposed to the sentimental, which separates itself from life, contemplates, writes poems and falls while dancing.
  
  As I continue, I turn to Tonio Kröger, the novella in which Thomas Mann describes his poetics - i.e. his relationship with art - most picturesquely. The Tadzio of Saša Milivojev melts into the character of Hans Hansen, another of those blue-eyed boys that enjoy every moment, deeply emerged in life, favored, fitting into the whole. Then I read the interview, a couple of columns and a few poems by this young man - still more of a boy than a man - and I realized that I had finally found an answer that remained lingering above my study paper: What would have happened if Hans Hansen had humored Tonio Kröger and read Don Carlos? Now I know – he would have become Saša Milivojev. This beautiful, young, talented poet is actually a reincarnation of Kröger’s biggest desire. He is a Hans Hansen who has read Don Carlos. Well-educated, ambitious, diligent, brimming with ideas, courageous and eloquent in his columns, vulnerable and frighteningly lonesome in his labyrinth, from which a small firefly, the carrier of divine light, will rescue him like Ariadne's thread. When the firefly is gone and darkness settles in, the embers will remain on the poet’s hands like Stardust or heavenly fire, empowering those hands to heal the wounds of this world by writing poetry and transmitting the healing energy into those who read it. In this “Giant Boy”, as the famous sculptor and poet Boris Staparac named Saša, The Naïve and the Sentimental have merged perfectly, as perfectly as yin and yang, water and fire, light and darkness. Behind this angelic blue-eyed Tadzio hides an uncompromising, brave and articulate columnist and writer of the novel about the Yellow House: “I fall with the rain, courage is urging me to say to the people, NO” - and also a gentle, vulnerable poet who, free from the desire for commercial success, carries his firefly (an embodiment of his guiding star) and seeks from all the gods the answer of all answers: What is the meaning of our existence?
  
  "Like haiku verses, the small, icy crystals of his poetry are condensed and reduced to the smallest number of words necessary to express the essence; slowly melting and dying in the heat of his dream of the desert, they lead us to endlessness, to the wandering stars, to the Fake Tears of the Moon, to questioning all the gods that preach about Love, gods who should finally become one, the all-seeing eye of the Universal Mind.
  
  Saša Milivojev has evolved into one of the most inventive poets in the world! Besides impressionist moments, such as the firefly leaving and parting the Light from Dark, his new book speaks of the emergence of the fifth ice age. His lyrical Saša Milivojev - WHEN THE FIREFLY IS GONEsubject travels through time, living all the disasters of the Planet Earth, from volcanic eruptions: Who protects you / From the burning rain / Now that you are gone, and the Sun melting away, to continental plates moving, deluges, global warming, poles melting, to Waves crashing and Towns sinking; Black mountains are crumbling / The locusts hiss all round / Gnawed bones / Float soaked”, and so on until the ultimate apocalypse and ice age. The collection entitled When the Firefly is Gone assumes prophetic proportions when pictures of drowning continents assail the reader’s mind. Africa is the last to sink, the water level rising over the tips of the pyramids, after which An endless plate of ice will be created; a camel will carry the lyrical subject as the victor, not unlike the epic heroes of old Arabic literature, but this time the camel Stumbles over the tips of the pyramids …
  
  Finally, I would like to address Saša personally and give him my motherly support, as he is an encouraging young face of future Serbia, despite all the cowards, all the indifferent mediocrities, and all Soros’s payees: I whish you all the best, my beautiful boy! You have a heavy burden to bear on your shoulders. I see that some have already started accusing you of manipulation and ambition, saying that, by choosing the topic for this book, you want to achieve instant success regardless of the risks the topic may bear. Hang in there, fight and move forward. Many will hate you for your beauty, but I can see the sign on your forehead, the one written in invisible ink. Work hard and your dream will come true. I bow before the hardships and suffering you will have to endure; I bow like Zosima the elder bowed before Mitya Karamazov. I am with you, my little Tadzio!
  
  Rada Saratlić (Journalist):
  
  I had a chance to meet Saša Milivojev, a young poet, and to read his first book while it was still in the manuscript. He wanted to hear my opinion about his work, and I told him the following: "No, I am not a judge, God forbid, God forbid."
  
  I felt that there was something sincere in his poetry and asked him: "Saša, what would you like to be in life, but tell me honestly?" - We were at my place...
  
  He told me: "I want to be a poet."
  
  Oh, Mother of Christ! I sat with my head buried in my hands... Hey! In Serbia!? To be a poet in yesterdays and today's?
  
  I carefully listened to him reading... We cannot do anything else but support him. That would cost us nothing. We are all familiar with Miljković and his quote: "Killed by Too Powerful a Word". - He ended his life in a toilet in Zagreb, running away from Belgrade. I guess that we have had enough of killing poets in Serbia at the very beginning of their career. There is something in it; we have felt something. Let us never remove from the scene the poets, actors, artists, shoemakers, or anyone who has a heart and soul. Let all of them stay on their stage.
  
  Spasoje Ž. Milovanović (Dramatist):
  
  "Saša Milivojev transforms his affinity for different forms of artistic expression into verses with skillful precision, amazing us with his musicality, picturesqueness, and the multiple meanings of each chosen word. The modern expression and structural complexity of his verses make him one of the most gifted poets..."
  
  Danica Aćimac (Actress):
  
  "Of all artists, I have always loved poets the most, not because they have dedicated their poems to me, but because a poet is an intermediary between God and people. The poetry of Saša Milivojev is very unusual; it extends through several dimensions and stimulates some new senses in the reader. He communicates with abstract worlds in which he finds his peace. Because of his unrequited love - a love he gives unconditionally, he runs away finding refuge in various religions. He communicates with the universe, nature, and people leaving, whom he sees through his "dirty windows". He communicates with fairies, Allah, and almighty gods who have bestowed upon him the gift of a lonesome healer. Nine/Evening/A bright speck soars/Darkness from the sky/The spinning of a wedding dance. I read once that a firefly is programmed by nature to shine at nine o'clock in the evening only. Sašas poem depicts the spinning of a wedding dance and a multitude of those bright specks moving in the dark. To me, it looks like the eternal floating of celestial bodies."
  
  Olja Ivanjicki (Painter):
  
  "When I walk into a bookstore I do not look for books by famous authors who have already proved themselves in the belles-lettres. I usually pay attention to new names and books that have appeared quietly, without any pomp. All those books have different fates that are entwined with our lives. On the floor below a book shelf, I saw a book with a cover of an angel writing verses in his own blood. I lifted the book, wiping the dust off it. The book was by a Saša Milivojev. I glanced through a couple of symbolic verses full of dramatic conflicts of the lyric subject and a dark picture of the world. It was enough for me to buy the book and take it home, hoping that I would find a ray of light in it, but I was disappointed with the lyrical exaggerations. However, when I turned the last page of the book, I realized that the author was very young and forgave him right away. More than two years later, he called me saying that he wanted me to hear his poems. He read a couple of poems that took my breath away. I saw a firefly that was gone and moved away from him like "The light speck/And the shore remains deserted," the shore on which the young poet was carrying the light in his hands and had the role of a healer."
  
  Žiža Stojanović (Actress):
  
  "He is unusually mature for his age; associational and deeply emotional He can soar into the heights, and descend carefully, when appropriate. Saša Milivojev is in love with poetry and beauty, unorthodox and uncatchable...

References

• The boy from the yellow house The boy from the yellow house is the most shocking novel ever published in the world, an autobiographical confession after which mankind will never be the same.
  2012