The World in Nowhereness is a translation of the pentalogy Svet u nigdini, written originally in Serbian. The titles of the individual books of this pentalogy are Ozar, The World and God, The World in Nowhereness, The World and People, The House of Light. The book is in the form of the so-called prosimetrum--a combination of poetry and prose. It contains 19 poetic forms that have never been used in Serbian poetry, four of which have never been used anywhere in the world. (One example: a double sonnet wreath with 29 sonnets appears for the first time in this book, which is unique in the world of poetry from a formal point of view.) The book characterizes epic momentum and various themes, including the Earthly dimension interwoven with extra-terrestrial and otherworldly dimensions embodied by the Cosmos and God. Also, the book contains elements of an epic work, essay, novel, drama, and a dominant line of pure philosophy.
THEY SAID ABOUT THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS
“When I got my hands on Dejan Stojanović's book The World in Nowhereness, I was amazed and read the book with great pleasure. I did not even believe there was someone today who could write such a long poem, an epic, as if I opened to read the Iliad in our time. I recommend this book to all believers in poetry because faith in poetry is the same as faith in eternity and eternal life.”
— Matija Bećković
“The World in Nowhereness is Dejan Stojanović’s utopian absolute book, a Mallarméan absolute. An absolute story, or an absolute book, according to Borges, is a desert-like book: sandy, grainily unforeseeable, and corpuscularly innumerable. It is simultaneously a vision and a chimera. Isn’t that precisely why we long for an absolute book? The World in Nowhereness by Dejan Stojanović is, in his way, an embodiment of that dream.”
— Srba Ignjatović
“I have always wondered, even about my poetic work, what a total poem is… Can the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović be called a total poem that every poet of note has dreamed about since Homer? I felt such impulses while reading The World in Nowhereness. This is an absolute poem, of an absolute system of thought that reaches across the totality of our civilizational legacies.”
-- Duško Novaković
“Exactly 17 years ago, in the last year of the 20th century, I came across the work of Dejan Stojanović, and then I wrote a text from which I will extract a few sentences. “Dejan Stojanović, in the last two years, made a real feat; he published six books, except for one, all books of poetry.” This first five-book collection was published in the last year of the 20th century, and here we are now with the five-book collection in the XXI century, nearing the end of the second decade. And then I also wrote the following: “Stojanović is a poet who searches for the perfect poetic form because at the same time he searches for the absolute meaning of human existence.” Whether it was a hunch or not, there is the Pentalogy, and there is that word, that concept – an absolute, an absolute book, an absolute poem that could be sensed even in that first pentalogy, in those poems that he published at that time.”
— Aleksandar Petrov (January 17, 2018)
“(The World in Nowhereness offers) the joy of cognition due to discoveries worthy of the Nobel Prize…”
-- Milan Lukić
“The World in Nowhereness is primarily the result of great literary ambition and faith in literature. It was not only Kiš who said that literature is created by form and that Sartre's quote should be placed at the entrance to the Association of Serbian Writers that “someone does not become a writer to say certain things, but to say them in a certain way.” Dejan Stojanović is one of those who think well about that way and think very sovereignly and broadly. Even in how he approaches the form, we can see the breadth of his education, including the humanities and the natural sciences. However, perhaps more than anything else, he enters into some area of spirituality and, I would even dare say, esoteric. If you read Dejan Stojanović, your life will not be the same – it will be better.”
— Muharem Bazdulj
“It has been quite a while since we had, if at all, a poetic pentalogy in Serbian poetry.”
-- Dušan Stojković
Dejan Stojanović's poetic-philosophical book The World in Nowhereness, both in form and content, is an original and exceptional literary work and can be considered a rare literary event in Serbian poetry and on the world stage.
— Nevena Vitošević
“It is every poet’s dream to write a relevant, unique, comprehensive book in which he will properly present all his thoughts and feelings that have appeared in his long conversations with the world. By the world, I mean everything manifested and abstract in (a) language, what is named, and what can be named. Dejan Stojanović’s extensive pentalogy The World in Nowhereness is an attempt at writing such a book. This pentalogy about the world and light is an ambitious endeavor.”
— Bratislav R. Milanović
“The World in Nowhereness, the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović, is an unusual endeavor in Serbian literature.”
-- Nikola Marinković
“The World in Nowhereness, a poetic endeavor by Dejan Stojanović, is an exceptional occurrence in Serbian.”
-- Dragan Kolarević
“There are very few such books in Serbian literature.”
— Ivan Cvetanović
“(The publishing of The World in Nowhereness is) a significant date in contemporary Serbian poetry.”
-- Miljurko Vukadinović
“Steadfast and consistent, with his mapping out of circular trajectories in the realms of poetry and philosophy, and always being something more than the sum of all parts, Dejan Stojanović has proved to be a thinker of continuously inventive thought. He belongs to that creative ilk whose body of work affirms the permanence of the long-established unity of the Mystic and the Magus. On the one hand, he is one of those with extensive knowledge and who, according to Bela Hamvash, are Mystics. Yet, he is also one of the Magi, who also possesses knowledge, but one meant to encourage and reflect the urge to peer into the other, lesser-known or completely unexplored side, which light cannot reach at first glance.”
-- David Kecman Dako
Dejan Stojanović, a sincere devotee of both poetry and philosophy, achieved a real poetic feat in 2017 by publishing an extensive five-volume book titled The World in Nowhereness.
— Aleksandar B. Laković
“The author is deeply immersed in his attempt to decode the essence of
the universe, the meaning of the origin, and the persistence of being therein. He seeks balance and the possibility of introducing harmony into seemingly incompatible, disharmonious phenomena and concepts.”
-- Gordana Vlahović
“Dejan Stojanović offers us The World in Nowhereness, his latest book, as a spiritual anthology. This is an ambitious poetic and essayistic project in a predominantly philosophical, dense, and layered pentalogy about humanity as the source and the final destination of all visible and invisible worlds. The manuscript is presented in innovative, avant-garde form. Dejan Stojanović wisely and expertly intertwines poetry and prose, the epic and the lyrical, and the theoretical-critical.”
-- Zorica Arsić Mandarić
“Stojanović’s pronounced contemplativeness is what makes him stand out in the contemporary world of the poetic invention as one of the few being in no quandary about the equality of poetry and philosophy and the necessity of their proper understanding, as well as a deeper decoding of the meaning behind words. For that reason, I see his search in the book The World in Nowhereness as a quest for the meaning of elemental survival in a time that is alienated, brutally real, and preoccupied with everything and nothing.”
-- Vidak Maslovarić
“Stojanović’s poetic, prosaic, and dramatic approach represents, in a unique sense, an array of basic concepts and elements of human existence, its earthly and cosmic destiny. He tackles the subjects of freedom, the Absolute, God, the Devil, chaos, order, truth, the world, etc. The philosophical, the religious, and the poetic make up the basic core in the interpretation and understanding of the ontology of human survival.”
-- Jovo Cvjetković
THEY SAID ABOUT THE WORLD IN NOWHERENESS
“When I got my hands on Dejan Stojanović's book The World in Nowhereness, I was amazed and read the book with great pleasure. I did not even believe there was someone today who could write such a long poem, an epic, as if I opened to read the Iliad in our time. I recommend this book to all believers in poetry because faith in poetry is the same as faith in eternity and eternal life.”
— Matija Bećković
“The World in Nowhereness is Dejan Stojanović’s utopian absolute book, a Mallarméan absolute. An absolute story, or an absolute book, according to Borges, is a desert-like book: sandy, grainily unforeseeable, and corpuscularly innumerable. It is simultaneously a vision and a chimera. Isn’t that precisely why we long for an absolute book? The World in Nowhereness by Dejan Stojanović is, in his way, an embodiment of that dream.”
— Srba Ignjatović
“I have always wondered, even about my poetic work, what a total poem is… Can the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović be called a total poem that every poet of note has dreamed about since Homer? I felt such impulses while reading The World in Nowhereness. This is an absolute poem, of an absolute system of thought that reaches across the totality of our civilizational legacies.”
-- Duško Novaković
“Exactly 17 years ago, in the last year of the 20th century, I came across the work of Dejan Stojanović, and then I wrote a text from which I will extract a few sentences. “Dejan Stojanović, in the last two years, made a real feat; he published six books, except for one, all books of poetry.” This first five-book collection was published in the last year of the 20th century, and here we are now with the five-book collection in the XXI century, nearing the end of the second decade. And then I also wrote the following: “Stojanović is a poet who searches for the perfect poetic form because at the same time he searches for the absolute meaning of human existence.” Whether it was a hunch or not, there is the Pentalogy, and there is that word, that concept – an absolute, an absolute book, an absolute poem that could be sensed even in that first pentalogy, in those poems that he published at that time.”
— Aleksandar Petrov (January 17, 2018)
“(The World in Nowhereness offers) the joy of cognition due to discoveries worthy of the Nobel Prize…”
-- Milan Lukić
“The World in Nowhereness is primarily the result of great literary ambition and faith in literature. It was not only Kiš who said that literature is created by form and that Sartre's quote should be placed at the entrance to the Association of Serbian Writers that “someone does not become a writer to say certain things, but to say them in a certain way.” Dejan Stojanović is one of those who think well about that way and think very sovereignly and broadly. Even in how he approaches the form, we can see the breadth of his education, including the humanities and the natural sciences. However, perhaps more than anything else, he enters into some area of spirituality and, I would even dare say, esoteric. If you read Dejan Stojanović, your life will not be the same – it will be better.”
— Muharem Bazdulj
“It has been quite a while since we had, if at all, a poetic pentalogy in Serbian poetry.”
-- Dušan Stojković
Dejan Stojanović's poetic-philosophical book The World in Nowhereness, both in form and content, is an original and exceptional literary work and can be considered a rare literary event in Serbian poetry and on the world stage.
— Nevena Vitošević
“It is every poet’s dream to write a relevant, unique, comprehensive book in which he will properly present all his thoughts and feelings that have appeared in his long conversations with the world. By the world, I mean everything manifested and abstract in (a) language, what is named, and what can be named. Dejan Stojanović’s extensive pentalogy The World in Nowhereness is an attempt at writing such a book. This pentalogy about the world and light is an ambitious endeavor.”
— Bratislav R. Milanović
“The World in Nowhereness, the pentalogy by Dejan Stojanović, is an unusual endeavor in Serbian literature.”
-- Nikola Marinković
“The World in Nowhereness, a poetic endeavor by Dejan Stojanović, is an exceptional occurrence in Serbian.”
-- Dragan Kolarević
“There are very few such books in Serbian literature.”
— Ivan Cvetanović
“(The publishing of The World in Nowhereness is) a significant date in contemporary Serbian poetry.”
-- Miljurko Vukadinović
“Steadfast and consistent, with his mapping out of circular trajectories in the realms of poetry and philosophy, and always being something more than the sum of all parts, Dejan Stojanović has proved to be a thinker of continuously inventive thought. He belongs to that creative ilk whose body of work affirms the permanence of the long-established unity of the Mystic and the Magus. On the one hand, he is one of those with extensive knowledge and who, according to Bela Hamvash, are Mystics. Yet, he is also one of the Magi, who also possesses knowledge, but one meant to encourage and reflect the urge to peer into the other, lesser-known or completely unexplored side, which light cannot reach at first glance.”
-- David Kecman Dako
Dejan Stojanović, a sincere devotee of both poetry and philosophy, achieved a real poetic feat in 2017 by publishing an extensive five-volume book titled The World in Nowhereness.
— Aleksandar B. Laković
“The author is deeply immersed in his attempt to decode the essence of
the universe, the meaning of the origin, and the persistence of being therein. He seeks balance and the possibility of introducing harmony into seemingly incompatible, disharmonious phenomena and concepts.”
-- Gordana Vlahović
“Dejan Stojanović offers us The World in Nowhereness, his latest book, as a spiritual anthology. This is an ambitious poetic and essayistic project in a predominantly philosophical, dense, and layered pentalogy about humanity as the source and the final destination of all visible and invisible worlds. The manuscript is presented in innovative, avant-garde form. Dejan Stojanović wisely and expertly intertwines poetry and prose, the epic and the lyrical, and the theoretical-critical.”
-- Zorica Arsić Mandarić
“Stojanović’s pronounced contemplativeness is what makes him stand out in the contemporary world of the poetic invention as one of the few being in no quandary about the equality of poetry and philosophy and the necessity of their proper understanding, as well as a deeper decoding of the meaning behind words. For that reason, I see his search in the book The World in Nowhereness as a quest for the meaning of elemental survival in a time that is alienated, brutally real, and preoccupied with everything and nothing.”
-- Vidak Maslovarić
“Stojanović’s poetic, prosaic, and dramatic approach represents, in a unique sense, an array of basic concepts and elements of human existence, its earthly and cosmic destiny. He tackles the subjects of freedom, the Absolute, God, the Devil, chaos, order, truth, the world, etc. The philosophical, the religious, and the poetic make up the basic core in the interpretation and understanding of the ontology of human survival.”
-- Jovo Cvjetković
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