Bor­is Lalić: Skate tales from Bosnia

Vodnjan / Astra / 20 / 9 / 2024 / 18:00 / Talk

From Stage Suc­cess to Skate­board­ing Revival

Bor­is Lalić, a Sara­jevo-born writer, gained loc­al fame for his DIY roots and for break­ing into Kamerni Teatar 55 with his pop­u­lar com­edy “Mirna Bosna”, which has been run­ning for sev­er­al sea­sons. Though ini­tially suc­cess­ful in lit­er­at­ure, Lalić made the fate­ful decision to aban­don skate­board­ing in favor of writ­ing, a choice that led to a peri­od of deep per­son­al and cre­at­ive struggle. How­ever, Lalić even­tu­ally returned to his skate­board­ing roots, find­ing bal­ance by work­ing at a skate shop and writ­ing skate­board­ing stor­ies infused with a touch of clas­sic lit­er­at­ure. Now, at 37, he con­tin­ues to blend his pas­sions, most recently mas­ter­ing the flip bs noseslide, a trick he’s eager to showcase.

Explor­ing Altern­at­ive Life­styles and Resi­li­ence Through Stories

In the story “Made in Chernobyl,” Bor­is Lalić delves into the theme of altern­at­ive life­styles, paint­ing a vivid pic­ture of a life lived on the fringes in a soci­ety where such paths are under­developed and often mis­un­der­stood. The nar­rat­ive cap­tures the essence of choos­ing a dif­fer­ent way of liv­ing, high­light­ing both the beauty and chal­lenges of going against the grain.

On the oth­er hand, “Dogodilo se u ratu” offers a poignant explor­a­tion of Sara­je­vo’s war­time skate­boarders. These skaters, hav­ing lost their fear of death amidst the chaos, become some of the best in the world. How­ever, the lack of elec­tri­city to record their feats and the dis­in­terest in “watch­ing” skate films in prose form under­scores a cent­ral mes­sage: in the end, the purest joy comes simply from skat­ing itself.

These stor­ies show­case Lalić’s unique abil­ity to blend per­son­al exper­i­ence with broad­er social com­ment­ary, offer­ing read­ers a glimpse into worlds where pas­sion and resi­li­ence over­come adversity.