Writer or Not. Peter Pišťanek and the Status of the Author

Abstract

The article deals with controversies concerning the authorial self-presentation of the Slovak writer Peter Pišťanek (1960 – 2015) and changes his attitude towards the role of the writer underwent. In the 1990s, when Pišťanek was a publishing author and his work was widely discussed, he ostentatiously rejected the status of the writer. However, later, after he stopped being active as an author, he partially assumed it. Until then, he would repeatedly present himself as a non-elite word craftsman (worker). This radical public gesture brought him a unique position in the Slovak literary field in the early 1990s. He would degrade the status of the writer both in his public self-presentations and in the key works of his first creative period. In these, the characters of writers are portrayed with a radical irony. Paradoxically, at the break of the 21st century, after he publically declared that he no longer writes fiction, Pišťanek embraced the role of the celebrity author. This shift can be observed in his editorial activities and interviews and journalism he authored at that time. Empathetic understanding of the character of the writer replaced the former ironic detachment.

Keywords

• peter pišťanek
• public image
• writer as character
• author and writer
• literary field