Living On Air

Living on Air is Nina Zivancevic's first novel written in an epistolary form. Its title, Living on Air was chosen by an attentive reader of this dreamy and zany piece of fiction - Gerard Malanga (photographer/poet/ Warhol's archivist cum secretary) who was the first one to point out the strong social issues and colourful background which dominate its seemingly plotless structure. Megalopolis such as New York, in the age of plagues - be it AIDS, be it a financial countdown of the world's mega-depression, be it the impoverished human communication - appears to be the real hero of Zivancevic's fiction. However, the ambiguous young immigrant's experiences in her new homeland can easily sway us into thinking that this may be nothing but just "another novel on brave immigration". It is not. Zivancevic, as a genuine poet/scholar and a performance artist puts on her dark Eastern European sunglasses and through their lens observes her new planet which shines dark in front of her. Another Eastern European, Julia Kristeva, critically described that foreign place which dwells at the same time outside and inside of us - she had entitled it The Black Sun. However, Nina Zivancevic's lyrical novel defies the notion of the genre as much as it redefines its themes and the socio-political issues. Its aesthetic approach to the actual problems in a society, clarifies the idea that the cause of the society's terminal ills and diseases is to be found in its existential, moral and social fabric.