Re Residua

This collection of notes, essays, epistles, stories, aperçus, diary entries, tales, epigrams, vignettes, parables, dreams, poems, quips, fables, snippets of conversation, pensées, maxims, slogans, visions, quotes, jokes, and aphorisms, as well as the addenda that extend all of the above, was begun in 1976. At first, the writings were collected at the end of the year into yearbooks and shared with friends and acquaintances around the world. Collections of writings extending over all years appeared in print on several occasions, the last time in 1996. Many of these writings were published since 1976, most often as selections on a particular theme. Originally, they went to philosophical journals. Later, they went mainly to art and literary journals. And now they go to the World Wide Web.

The writings are presented in chronological order. They trace the author’s life in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, from 1976 to 1979; Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1979 to 1990; Reading, Berkshire, from 1990 to 1993; Reading and London from 1993 to 2000; Reading from 2000 to 2003; and Motovun, Istria, since 2003. As the short biography shows, the author writes and paints. He had taught both in the United States and the United Kingdom. He was born in Zagreb in 1946 and grew up in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he had lived from 1948 to 1970, when he went to Cambridge to pursue his graduate studies. He was married to Elise Rudin in 1970, and to Lauren Weingarten in 1992. His children, Marko, Dorian, and Maya, to whom the whole book is dedicated, were born in 1975, 1992, and 1995. Together with the author’s parents, Branko and Milena Bon née Flego, who had moved from Belgrade to Reading in 1993 and died there in 2001, these are the main protagonists of the book.

Residua can be thought of as an art project. It is about a journey of discovery and shaping of the author’s own self. The author is inviting others to partake in his journey, as well as to consider their own journeys of discovery and shaping of their own selves. According to the author, this is art’s ultimate aim.