Natig Rasulzade was born in Baku in 1949. He graduated from the Moscow Literature Institute. He is the Vice President of the PEN Club in Azerbaijan, a member of the Board of the Union of Writers, the Board of the Union of Cinematographers, the Board of the Union of Theater Workers of Azerbaijan, an author of more than 40 books published in Baku, Moscow, European countries, dozens of plays and scenarios for fiction movies.
- Why do they call you the “Caucasian Kafka”?
- My books began to be published in Europe in the Soviet times, 30 years ago. There was the Europe Publishing House in Budapest, which published three books of mine in a row. Ahead of this, my novel ‘Home’ was published in a literature magazine. After this, an article appeared in a newspaper. I don’t speak Hungarian, it is a difficult language; so they translated the article for me. The editor telephoned me and said: “I congratulate you. Our reviewer wrote an article and he stated that a new Kafka has appeared in the Caucasus.” I replied: “Thank you! I love Kafka very much.” Later the Russian ambassador to Baku Vladimir Dorokhin began to call me Kafka.
I can’t say I like it. I was different at different times. When I was a student, I wrote stories, and they called me Maupassant, i.e. my stories were as keen as Maupassant’s stories. [The Soviet and Azerbaijani writer] Chingiz Abdullahyev thinks that I am a successor to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as I write in the mystic realism style. Kafka is a great writer, I adore Maupassant and Marquez. They are among my favorite writers. But I am Natig Rasulzade, and I want everybody to treat me like an original writer.
When I was a student at the Literature Institute everybody tried to copy Hemingway. They imitated his long and fragmentary dialogues. When you are young and read a lot, you will definitely copy someone. Some writer becomes your idol, and there can be many idols. Salinger was my favorite writer. I imitated Salinger, but the childish illness disappeared.
Later my stories, novels, plays, scripts were unique and original. I like mystic realism, but Marquez wasn’t the only one who wrote in this style. The whole of Latin American literature is built on this, and not only Latin American. They call me Kafka, I don’t mind. But I am Natig Rasulzade and will always be me.
- And when did Natig Rasulzade feel a craving to start writing?
- At 14-15 years I had a wisdom tooth – I went to the newspaper 'Youth of Azerbaijan' (it was issued in the Russian and Azerbaijani languages) and offered my services. They gave me an uninteresting theme – to write about old revolutionaries. I saturated this theme with some images, twirled, twisted. The editors looked and said that you can't write like that. But at 14-15-years old I went to some newspaper school as a freelancer: I wrote and received a fee. But I was not interested in fees. When I saw my first publication, I just went crazy, I thought that now everyone in the streets will look at me, will approach ne, asking: "Are you the one who wrote about these old people?"
After 10th grade I hadn't decided if I wanted to become a journalist. I entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute (now it is called the Technical University) in industrial civil engineering. Now my fellow students are famous architects, and in a few months we will celebrate 50 years since we became friends. But I dropped out of this institute in my third year, when I came to my senses. In the 1960s, when a young man dropped out of a promising institution, it was a tragedy for the family. At the time it was even impossible to get married without a diploma. But I changed my destiny. If I was 30 then, I probably would have thought a hundred more times, but at 17 years old, everything is done simply.
I entered the Literary Institute, where wonderful, famous writers taught us. In the early 1970s, even if you just wanted to go to Bulgaria, it was necessary to collect a suitcase of documents, take a blood test. When our famous composer, Kara Karayev, and dramatist, Rustam Ibrahimbeyov, went to America, when they returned everybody pointed at them – they were in America! And our teachers went abroad all the time, and afterwards we asked them: "We don't need any lectures, tell us it's like there." We were a closed country. They told us very interesting things.
Already in the Literary Institute I began to write prose, moving away from the newspaper school, which, by the way, gave me a lot, because I had to write succinctly, rigidly, without frills and fantasies, without any images. I realized that the main thing is the essence. In literature, the main thing is the image, the man. Why do we reread the classics of Dostoevsky? Because there are the Karamazov brothers, Count Myshkin. Why do we reread Tolstoy? Because there is Rostova, Pierre Bezukhov. Everything revolves around images. Any plot can be created. Nobody will reread a book for the sake of its plot. It is like a detective novel in which the ending is already known. But if the detective novel was written by Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon or Conan Doyle, you would re-read these books because there are living people in them. The cornerstone of literature is a living image. I immediately realized this and began to write true prose. Stories and novels were issued in Baku, in Moscow, then there were books.
- What did you spend your first fee on?
- My first fee was from a newspaper. I was about 15 years old. I brought it home. At home, my hobby wasn't considered serious, they said: "Do your homework! Why are you doing this nonsense again?" And then it turned out that you are getting payment for this.
Gradually, their opinion changed when my books were published. Guys who studied with me here at the Polytechnic University were just getting on their feet, working for a salary, and I, when my book was published in Moscow, received 5-8 thousand rubles – in the 1970s it was a huge amount of money. I received about 6000 for the script.
But this is a double-edged sword. During the Soviet period the authorities believed that literature and art should work for the current regime, for the Soviet regime. Of course there were exceptions. There were writers who wrote pretty serious things that went against communism. But it was very difficult for them. They were declared insane, or they were forced to leave the country with terrible difficulties.
At the time, I also published a book about Baku's underground millionaires, where there was a lot of sedition – a lot of crime, a lot of eroticism, a lot of things which were prohibited by censorship. Then everyone asked only one question: "How did you do it?" Indeed, the fact that this book was published is a miracle. Afterwards someone was even fired from his job at the publishing house, someone in the printing committee was reprimanded. My popularity became huge after that, but I was beaten hard. Responsible officers of the Central Committee of the party said: "He is a dissident!" After that, it was as if I was cut with a knife. More books were thrown out of the plans of the publishing house, the magazine stopped publishing.
But I had good relationships with the first secretary of the Union of Writers of Azerbaijan, Imran Kasumov. I told him that I wanted to leave Baku, because I couldn't live here as a writer. He understood everything, and asked me not to hurry. Two weeks later Kasumov called me and said: "You can breathe freely. First Secretary Heydar Aliyev read your book and approved it. He said that there is nothing terrible in it. The republic has negative phenomena, and people should write about them. We will fight them."
I do not think that Heydar Aliyev, given his business, actually read the book, but he supported me, and it was a serious turning point in my life. Senior officials who criticized me anf called me a dissident, an enemy of the Soviet regime, began to call me and say: "I will send a driver now, sign the book." I signed them and sent them back.
- Was censorship good or bad for literature?
- Of course it was not good. Throughout the world there was no such censorship. Censorship cuts the wings of writers. I remember when I was a student, Marquez came to Moscow and spoke very harshly about the Soviet policy of circulation. Soviet writers received meager fees from huge circulations. A lot of things were wrong in the Soviet Union, but there were some positive moments. It is our past. It cannot be forgotten. People had confidence in tomorrow. They received a small salary, but knew that they wouldn't die of hunger, although, of course, it was pygmy psychology.
- Was the writer a cult figure?
- Yes, but he worked for ideology. Only Solzhenitsyn, Aksenov, stood out from the crowd. The whole film industry was ideology. I wrote about this in the best-selling 'Rider in the Night'. Now businessmen receive medals, and at the time they were executed. If you have earned a million, it was considered robbery of state property in especially large sizes. Up against the wall!
The book was published in Baku in an issue of 50 thousand copies. Then it was published in the Moscow publishing house 'Young Guard', with even larger circulation. There were huge circulations. But what was their purpose? Step to the left, step to the right – and they were banned.
- Did you live in a students’ hostel while you were studying in Moscow? What was your student life like?
- Student hostels were like a layer cake. The first and second floors were not residential. Girls lived on the third floor, boys on the fourth floor, then girls on the fifth floor and so on up to the seventh floor. It was an interesting life. I’ve written a novel recently. The first part was published in the magazine ‘Literary Azerbaijan’, where I wrote about many memories of the Literary Institute. I had both funny and sad moments. I was a little rowdy. I remember many scuffles. I was even about to be expelled when I was a third-year-student. But the rector, the famous theater critic Vladimir Fedorovich Pimenov, had a mild disposition.
And the Literary Institute was quite a unique institution itself. There are only two such literary institutes: in Leipzig and in Moscow. We have philology departments in some educational institutions, but we have no literary institutions. If a person is creatively baseless, he could be expelled even if he was a third-year or fourth-year student. Even if he had excellent marks. Such situations were at the Russian University of Theatre Arts, as well as our Literature Institute. One creatively baseless girl studied with us and she could not write ingeniously (I do not know how she passed exams. Perhaps with the help of somebody else’s work, because according to the competition, one student was selected from 3000 other candidates!) We dragged her by the scruff of the neck and even wrote stories instead of her. Once we were drunk and decided to gather together. Someone wrote the first paragraph, the other wrote the second one and so on. We managed to write an ingenious and large graduate work for her. I received a good mark, but her work was appreciated as excellent.
- Did you have construction brigades?
- We gathered beets at a collective farm. On the first day, I stumbled on a beet. I found the biggest one. Then I stumbled and started to simulate pain: "Oh, my foot!". As a result, I returned. As the student hostel was empty, I got down to work and I continued to work very well for a month.
I also remember one scuffle. I was walking at night on Tverskoy Boulevard with a knuckle-duster in my pocket. Suddenly I saw three drunk guys, who started fighting me. When a police officer appeared they ran away, but I spent that night at the police station. In the morning the police officer said: ‘‘Let’s go drink beer, my shift is over." We went to a bar, and he began to read poetry to me when he learned that I was a student at the Literary Institute. Moreover, with such expression. He read Yesenin and Pushkin.
- Did the student’a card help you to make acquaintance with girls?
- We have enough girls at our institute. But in our group one smart boy said to me: "When you meet a girl, show her your student card. She will know that you didn't come to sell vegetables, but you will spend at least six months here." But it seemed to me that a person should have some other advantages than a student card.
- Tell me how books are created. How do ideas appear?
- They may appear in different ways. Sometimes some unrelated things give an impetus to this. Sometimes an extract of some phrase that can be heard walking down the street. Then I try to develop it. Some things begin to become clearer. I always think about it, and can even walk along without anyone noticing. Sometimes people take offense if I pass by without saying hello, or without saying something in return. Something is always in my head, and then these thoughts can transform into some formed idea. After that, the idea can establish the basis of a professional plot.
Now I think that real literature should be without a plot, like our life. Plot is an artificial thing. Plot is a cell with an idea, deliberately put there by the author. I intend to make my new novel without a plot. Although there are many episodes, and things I would like to write about, some ideas are forgotten, and they have even died inside of me.
- The novel ‘War and Peace’ is also based on different characters.
- It is mechanically easier to write screenplays in this respect. I have about 20 screenplays that have not become films. Another 20 have not become films for different reasons. When you write, you have an idea. But screenplays are not a writer’s work. A director, a cameraman, and even sometimes even a designer works with screenplays. A producer can say: "I want to see this actor in this role." And in this case you should write according to his preferences. There are a lot of nuances. However, there are some positive aspects in comparison with prose, which appears spontaneously. Especially when you know the idea and work out a scenario plan. The Italians say ‘skeletto.’ So you write and work it out according to the skeleton. Prose is completely different.
I remember as if it were the first time I read Faulkner's novel ‘The Sound and the Fury’ in ‘Foreign Literature.’ In the foreword he wrote: "It is a miracle when you don’t know what white paper will help you to create." This amazed me, because many times I experienced the same state. I began to write, and I didn’t know what it would be in the end. And then I saw that white paper reveals something entirely new. Some things I didn’t even know before. The psychology of creativity is the hardest thing, like dreams. Even now, nobody knows how they appear. However, Dostoevsky described it best of all: it is "an unprecedented combination of habitual experiences," but there are a lot of nuances.
It's a little bit boring when you know where to put a full stop, where the culmination is, where the main hero should die, where the beginning is, as well as where to use this phrase in order that nobody sets the book aside. You are walking a well-trodden path. Both Hemingway and other classic writers considered that the most important thing is the first phrase. Write it in a way that you would like to write more. And if you want to continue writing, then the readership will want to continue reading the book. It's a miracle when you write and don’t know anything except for the first phrase. And I'd like my future works to be like a real miracle.
To be continued
