Charles Simic

Paris Review Interview

CHARLES SIMIC

My father came from a blue-collar background. He was the first child in that family to go to university. On the other side, my mother came from an old Belgrade family that had been living in the same spot for a couple of centuries. They were pretty wealthy in the late nineteenth century, but lost everything. My grandfather on my mother’s side, who was a military man, gambled it all away, as I only found out years later.

INTERVIEWER

How did the different branches of your family get on?

SIMIC

To tell the truth, they despised each other. My mother showed her dislike for my father’s relations with sighs, the rolling of eyes, and meaningful asides, while my father’s side was more direct. They were a rowdy, hard-drinking bunch. I identified more with them. My mother’s family was fearful, paranoid, and secretive. They had lost their wealth and were worried about keeping up appearances. They had no sense of humor. Nothing was ever funny to them. My father’s family, when they got going at a dinner table, they were like a dadaist cabaret, so you can imagine how my poor mother felt in their company.