detail from: KRK Art dizajn

DIALOGUE WITH THE AUTHOR

By Ilija Šaula

When I open a book, it feels as though I am unlocking the door to a hidden room. I am not afraid of meeting the shadows of the past, because I know the author is waiting there, alive, present, ready to speak. His words ignite my curiosity, and in that moment, I feel the need for dialogue: a quiet exchange in which truth is born.

For me, reading is an encounter between two inner worlds. The reader brings his experiences, doubts, and hopes, while the author brings his visions, insights, and impressions. In that meeting, a third world emerges, the world of dialogue, where truth is not accepted passively but shaped through the interplay of thoughts on the stage where the drama unfolds.

While I read, I am not a passive observer. I imagine myself as a director who sets the scene, lights the characters, interprets their gestures, and searches for meaning in every movement. The author offers me his sentences as actors, and I assign them new roles. His idea becomes my line, my question, my answer. This is how a parallel discourse arises, separate yet deeply connected.

Every book offers a path toward truth, because truth is a search that shapes our consciousness. A book becomes a signpost, and the reader, the one who seeks, questions, and builds bridges between words and his own experience, becomes a traveler.

Reading is also a spiritual act. When I enter into dialogue with an author, I speak at a time that no longer exists, with an experience that is not mine, with a soul that may be familiar with my own karma. And yet, in that encounter, there is no death, only life, because thought begins to take root in the reader’s consciousness.

Dialogue with the author is a prayer without an altar, a meditation without a mantra. It is a conversation in silence, where every thought becomes a mirror in which I recognize myself. The author encourages me to think more deeply and to listen to my own inner music. The inspiration born from that encounter is like the hidden spring of a river. A single drop of words becomes a stream of thoughts, and the stream becomes a river of text. The essay that emerges from that flow is a new life born from the seed of dialogue.

It is difficult for me to imagine truth as a solo performance; for me, it is a choir in which different voices intertwine. Dialogue with the author is precisely that, a meeting of two voices that do not need to agree but must hear one another. Understanding what we read reminds us that every reader brings his own experience into the interpretation of a text. My experience colors the author’s words. His truth becomes my question; my doubt becomes his answer. In that circular movement, truth is not static but alive, like a flame whose underside is always shifting.

Culture is built through that choir. When many readers enter into dialogue with the same author, a community forms one that shares an experience. It is a choir in which every voice has its own color, yet together they create harmony, a symphony ready to be performed in any hall.

Dialogue with the author is not only a noble idea but also a practical method. Reading and writing become two faces of the same process: one asks, the other answers, and truth is born in their encounter. It can be understood as a trinity: scientific, as cognitive interaction; spiritual, as inner conversation; philosophical, as the search for truth.

Dialogue is an invitation to the reader to be an active participant in culture, not a passive recipient, and an invitation to the writer to write as if speaking to a future reader. It is an invitation to all of us to understand reading and writing as a living process that transforms us.

Every book has a door. When I open it, I enter a conversation that changes me. The author gives me his words; I return my thoughts to him. In that encounter, the boundary between us disappears, only dialogue remains, a living flame that burns within culture and leaves a lasting trace.

Belgrade vs. 11/01/26

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