I was ’invited’ to tell this story

Ana Atanasković is a writer with style, and rich bibliography and journalist experience. She graduated in English language and literature at the Faculty of Philology within the University of Belgrade. She especially remembers the exams in English literature, which she prepared extensively and thoroughly. Just then, during the written exam in English Literature II, with her favorite professor Slobodan Vukobrat, she realized the importance of the power that words have and the value of writing when general knowledge and culture are included, and not just textbook data.

She used that passion when writing the novel ’My Love Nikola Tesla’, which was written from the point of view of the American woman, Katherine McMahon Johnson, and which seems even more important for the American society,  in relation to the Serbian. As a foreigner who studied English, the author successfully adapted her style to the English sentence and conveyed to us the entire atmosphere of American history, its important people (writers, editors, diplomats, scientists, architects, industrialists), and especially the Gilded age of New York.

This would not have been possible without her dedicated research work, which lasted four years and involved a lot of traveling and reading history books, especially at the University of Delaware, where she did the greatest part of it. This is also the proof that Ana Atanasković is a fighter for the things she cares about. This is her characteristic that she herself emphasizes as the one she is most proud of.

Ana Atanasković was born in Kruševac in 1973, and has been living and working in Belgrade for 30 years.

The turning point toward writing literature happened after meeting a colleague from the faculty who said that she had written a book. Ana then realized that she had been suppressing that desire for a long time by doing an official job. Today, she is a prolific author who has published two collections of stories and four novels, two of which have been edited and enriched. Her works have previously been translated into Macedonian, and the novel ’My Love Nikola Tesla’ was given the opportunity to present itself to the US audience.

The book “My Love Nikola Tesla” is dedicated to Katherine McMahon Johnson, but the story of her is inseparable from the life story of Nikola Tesla. How did the inspiration for this novel come about?

Since childhood, I was interested in Tesla, as my father, a teacher of mathematics and physics, really liked him. We watched a TV series about Tesla’s life together, and the first time when I noticed Katherine Johnson was in an article in the ’Galaxy’ magazine that may father used to read.

There is no doubt that a lot of research work has been invested in the novel. How much time did you spend researching and what material did you use to make the novel so rich in historical facts? How much of the novel is facts-based, and how much is your imagination?

The research lasted for four and the writing took one year. All together I have spent five years of my life to create this novel. I read biographies, histories of New York, went to museums, traveled, but I also used intuition. In the novel, most of the events are true, and what makes the imagination are feelings, dreams and reconstructions of possible events.

Where did you spend most of your time writing this novel? With what thoughts and feelings did you approach it?

I spent time in my apartment. My main thought was to preserve Tesla’s dignity and to present Katherine Johnson with dignity. It is a great responsibility to write about people who existed.

The novel is divided into chapters that are inspired by the concept of the four elements of nature. Where did this idea come from? Are there any elements, more precisely chapters of the life of your main character, Katherine Johnson, that you were especially fond of while researching her life? Why? Can it be said that the lives of each of us go through these four chapters, and end, like the book – in ether?

A friend suggested this concept to me, but it is very important to emphasize that there is a fifth element – ether, which Tesla believed in and used in his scientific evidence.

I am especially glad that Katherine Johnson is exactly as I imagined her before the trip to the United States where I researched her in depth. I am glad because I have the feeling that I felt her, in a way, and that I was ’invited’ to tell this story.

Katherine Johnson is a very interesting person. While reading the book, that feeling of fire smoldering in her was transferred to me as well. And not only in relation to her emotions towards Nikola Tesla, but also towards socializing, traveling, children … At one point, she says that she wants to “gather great people and be a source”. However, she herself says that she is often lonely because what she wants most remains unattainable. Is the fate of such intense feelings to remain unrequited? Do you think that the fire would have been gradually extinguished if the emotions she felt towards Tesla had been mutual?

Some feelings were mutual and some were not, but that is less important. What makes the difference are the feelings a person has in herself, she should not pay attention to how others perceive them.

It is possible that the fire would be extinguished, everything is possible… However, I doubt it because she loved him spiritually. Some fires can extinguished, but the permanence of the soul is what matters and counts – this is why the ether is the most important part of the novel.

In one part of the book, your heroine also talks about the state between dream and reality, about the “bliss of half-dream and half-life”. Knowing Katherine McMahon Johnson so well, do you think it could be said that she has been in such a state for most of her adult life? What would you describe as her characteristic that gives her the strength to find joy in other things in life, despite the great emptiness she felt?

I experienced her that way, I see her as a fighter, but also as someone who encountered obstacles. It is important that she was honest, persistent and steady, and that she was a friend, a soulmate, and a spiritual patron for Tesla.

The novel describes Nikola Tesla as someone who at that time and that environment often was perceived as a weirdo, a wizard, someone in whom the society has no complete trust, but still admires his inventions. What is your impression of Nikola Tesla, can it be said that he is such an extraordinary man that no environment and no time could fully understand him?

He was a genius with human qualities, even problems. Being mentally ahead of his contemporaries for several centuries was in a way a hindrance to him, but, in the end, he was pleased because he knew he was working for the future.

In modern times, there is a lot of talk about the fact that Nikola Tesla hated women in a certain way, more precisely that he considered them inferior beings. After a lot of research work, do you think that accusation is true? Reading your novel, I believe it could be said that his attitude towards Katherine Johnson was really fair, but I’m interested in your opinion on that.

Tesla did not hate all women, he even spoke positively about the female gender, citing the spirit and energy of women. He could not stand hard, loud, obese and ornate women. He was a gentleman and his attitude towards Katherine Johnson and other ladies was in line with that.

Let’s end with your own answer to the question that Katherine Johnson, to whom the book is dedicated, asks herself. What would be your answer – what is woman’s happiness?

The happiness of every person, including women, is to do what they love, and to occupy themselves with the activities they were meant to do in this world. That is, to give the world what they know and what they feel the best from their own soul.

S.P.