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An INTERVIEW with BAZHE ® (author, poet, and artist)

(Author of Damages- see review below)

(From: NOTES FROM HOLLYWOOD - SPECIAL GUEST STARS)

Q: Where did you grow up? Was reading and writing a part of your life and why?

My earliest influences were Hesse and Selimovic. I enjoyed their philosophical writings. Then I began to read Dostoyevsky. His search of the truth fascinated me. Next was Proust with his psychological analysis that made me more observant.

Q: Why do you write?

I think a person who writes carries conflict and pain. To overcome that conflict and pain, a person writes. Writing is a great way to challenge the denials and the truths in yourself and others around you.

Q: Damages is a very dynamic and unusual memoir of a young man. You write about your young adult life that seems like fiction. Tell us more about it?

I never know just how I will write. I simply let the words flow. Damages is a book where "the truth is stranger than fiction," as the old saying goes. It is based entirely on real events. Of course, to protect the privacy of the participants, many of the names of the characters and specific details about certain events have been changed.

Damages is a personal history replete with betrayal from family, friends, relatives, government officials, informants, army recruits, teenage ruffians, hired help, transvestites, nationalists, and Christian and Muslim fundamentalists. It is a story about my unconditional love towards my adoptive mother who suffers from cancer and my search for the biological one that I never knew. It is a tale of my inner and outer wars and the journey of self-discovery.

Q: You write about the psychological wounds of your childhood, how you worked to overcome them?

My fight to overcome the psychological wounds created by my peculiar upbringing began, when for the first time, I realized that I was manipulated by the adult world. I was very little then. I faced the conflicts boldly and I began to analyze myself and the people around me in order to find my true identity and freedom. It was tough. It was a struggle. But I survived.

Q: Was Damages a difficult or easy book to write? Please explain.

Damages was a very difficult book to write since once more I have to challenge my denials and truths as accurately as possible.

Q: Did the finding of your biological mother help you appreciate your adoptive mother more?

Absolutely. I can't help thinking of Mother, her permission for me to reunite with the biological one, her compromise with her rival, and all for my sake. Mother would have been devastated if she had heard the biological mother's last conversation with me. People are absolutely correct when they say you have only one Mother—not the one who bore you, but the one who raised you. I ultimately discovered that it is my adoptive mother's devotion that is irreplaceable.

Q: What has been your feedback from readers?

Excellent. So far I have not received negative feedback, and the readers are demographically very diverse. I am very happy about it.

Q: Who are your favorite writers and why?

Mostly I love the classic writers. I love Faulkner, Capote, Márquez, Nabokov, Bukowski, Pasolini, Balzac, Salinger, Baldwin, Williams, Conrad, Selby, and Vidal, because of their exquisite style of writing. Their writings are real art. From the poets I adore the love poetry of Rimbaud and Plath, and the bold poetry of Neruda and Lorca. I consider Kushner, Waller, and Ondaatje en exceptional modern writers. I found them fresh and innovative.

Q: What's next?

I will write a purely American book since I am an American now.

I also published my poetry book called Identities.

Identities is about analyzing human manipulations through poetry. The poems deal with greed and ignorance, destruction and war, politics and phoniness, love and hatred, sex and ecstasy, loneliness and loss, and visionary musings of hope.

Next, I am preparing an art book that will include my 50 paintings and philosophical phrases.

Then I will have another art show.

Q: What was the last book you read?

"Candid" by Voltaire. I reread it for fourth time. He is one of the greatest thinkers of Europe.

Q: Tell us about your artwork.

In general human manipulations are the subjects portrayed in my art work. Artists I love: Hieronymus Bosch, Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali, and many others.

Q: Do you have any hobbies? How do they enhance your writing and art?

My cat, art, poetry, and garden are my therapies. They purify my body and mind and at the same time recharge them with fresh energy for writing.

The Nature fighting against our ignorance and distructive selfish ways. My message has been always simple: "Aiming for Peace and Love."

To See/Read More About Me: All Reviews, Excerpts, Interviews, Upcoming Events, Art, and Poetry,

Visit My Website at: BAZHE.com
 

Damages by Bazhe  (reprinted with permission from http://www.bookreviewsbycrystal.blogspot.com/)

Bazhe's autobiography that will truly touch your heart.

Bazhe was tormented from a very young age by his family and friends.
He was also on the search for his biological parents; and was having no luck at all finding them. These actions would later in life mold him into the man he is today. Bazhe's whole life changed when he received the news that his father passed away.

Bazhe knew he must come to Macedonia to mourn for his father so he or "Mother" would not be ridiculed. While staying at home, he realized there was something wrong with his mother. Finally convincing her to go to the doctor, she was diagnosed with cancer. He stayed by her side almost the entire time of her illness; helping her in any way he could.

He finally got a lead on his biological mother from an old college friend. When he tracked Mila down, she expressed how badly she did not want to give Bazhe up but was so young at the time she was raped by his father, she didn't have any other choice. Bazhe wants the truth about his father, but Mila will not speak of him. He even invited her stay in his parents home when she came to visit.

Bazhe felt he lived in two different worlds with two very different mothers. He would take care of Kostadina, and as soon as she fell asleep from the medications he would go to Mila and tell her the story of his life. Recounting the horrors as well as the nice parts of growing up, he shares in great detail his first gay experience, first love, and first drag experience with Mila. Wanting her to know him for who he really was. He could never tell these things to his mother Kostadina.

As time progressed, Mila had to return home to her husband and two sons. She called to check on Bazhe quite often; sometimes he would answer the phone and other times not. The cancer had began to eat at his mother's body rapidly. In the few months he was back in America taking his citizenship exam, her condition worsened. When Bazhe returned to Macedonia to be with his mother once again, it would be the last time he saw her alive.

Bazhe has written the heart wrenching story of his life in this book. I was amazed at all he had to endure during his youth and adulthood. Bazhe may have been damaged on the outside and in his heart; but never once was his spirit broken. This story is shocking and so full of love. You must pick up a copy of this book and get to know Bazhe because he sounds like such a wonderful man with so much love in his heart.
This autobiography deserves 5 hearts. I wish I could meet Bazhe in person, the first thing I would do is give him a huge hug for being such a wonderful son to his mother and for doing what he wanted to do in life; despite what others wanted him to do.

 

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