May 19 - 24, 2003
American author Robert Olen Butler enlivened crowds and turned people on to American writing from May 19 - 24 in Kosovo. Mr. Butler met with students, writers, journalists, politicians, academics and the general populace as part of his five-week Balkan and Germany tour. Audiences warmly and enthusiastically greeted Mr. Butler, whether the lecture took place in a university, high school, office or library. His discussions about the writing process, finding your unconscious self, and what it means to be an artist prompted questions from "How do 'small languages' get a world voice?" to "Why have no great works about the war in Kosovo yet been written by local writers?" In his discussions, Mr. Butler touched upon the diversity of American writers and left audiences with the thought that true artists break through ideas and biases and reach a point where "…you are no longer American or Kosovar, black or white, Albanian or Serbian. You are human."