Ama or Playing Glass Bead Game with Pythagoras Sunday Times Author Interview

[Nataša]

Happy to share A-Ma Alchemy of Love by Nataša Pantović Sunday Times Interview A Beautiful Mind by Ana Matkova Sunday Times Interview A Beautiful Mind

Seated on a panel with her fellow writers, Maltese-Serbian novelist Nataša Pantović has been known to use slam poetry to perform her poetic body of work.

Like her prose, the improvised words, tribal music, percussionist sounds, lengthy ‘aum’ chanting, are neither too preposterous nor too earnest but endlessly curious. A bridge builder between East and West, following ancient archaeological findings, she often dives into historic settings more than 2,000 years back in time.

In her novel, Ama: Playing the Glass Bead Game with Pythagoras, the 52-year-old author makes a bold swerve into less-travelled territory. She chooses for her protagonists Ama, an African priestess, living in China’s Macao in the 17th century; Ruben, a Portuguese Jesuit priest; and Fr Benedict, an Orthodox Christian.


Nataša Pantović and her son Andrej at the launch of the novel Tree of Life: with Spiritual Poetry: A Journey into the Field of Dreams in Valletta 2019.

The book explores the rapidly-growing Macao, its changing sights, sounds and smells from different perspectives, from that of a bat to a goddess to a spirit. Its miracle and its enigma are within the worlds of inner alchemy of the Age of Enlightenment.

Can you tell us about Ama: Playing the Glass Bead Game with Pythagoras?

Both Hesse and Tolstoy were my first spiritual gurus. Through their deep insights and soulful messages, for the first time I experienced the world of spiritual growth and deep contemplation. Many artists have inspired my writings, the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Lao Tzu and Giordano Bruno. Pythagoras lived on the crossroads of civilisations, as I see us, and he has given us his fascinating research into music and numbers. With my deep respect towards ancient worlds, Pythagoras with his ancient Egyptian mystical knowledge had to be my protagonist.

In your novel, you follow the famous reform of the Chinese calendar during the 17th century. Can you tell us about your research?

I started writing this as a 17th-century novel. In this novel, it was easy to write from the point of view of the main character, a priest or Ama’s mother or a man without a name or a goddess, Lilith.

Holding up a mirror to society of ancient worlds can be fanatical or too obvious within the storytelling environment, so I had to break the rhythm with myths, with art, with dreams.

I wanted to bring in the many first-person singular voices, starting with an animal ‒ a bat, as a story-teller, moving to Pythagoras, to people who meet Ama within the setting of her coffee house. This narrative framework is 50 per cent inspired by the ‘yin’ mindset; dreamy and emotional, and five per cent factual, male and mind-driven.

What is it within this black main character that fascinates you so much?

Ama lived with me for 10 years before I knew I would adopt two kids from Ethiopia, yet Ama as the main protagonist of the story has decided to be black.

Was Athens black at the time of the ancient Greeks or was it full of Slavs that during the Dark Ages were not allowed to have their own European history?

All my characters do have strong political, ideological and moral commitments, their ideas are ground-breaking; it is a science against the Church, male against female, East against West conversation.

Holding up a mirror to society of ancient worlds can be fanatical or too obvious within the storytelling environment, so I had to break the rhythm with myths, with art, with dreams.

This novel is, of course, about the search for truth, but from the goddess perspective, about love and union, of the priestesses that have given us the first commandment “Do not kill...”...

[Nataša]

2 days after the Sunday Times Review Macau Journal had an article in Portuguese reviewing A-Ma Alchemy of Love. Wow!
A-Ma: Alchemy of Love”, uma narrativa passada em Macau sobre “a busca pela verdade in Ponto Final Macau


“A-Ma: Alchemy of Love”, uma narrativa passada em Macau sobre “a busca pela verdade”
“A-Ma: Alchemy of Love”, um livro cuja acção se passa na Macau do século XVII. Agora, em entrevista ao jornal Times of Malta, a autora, Nataša Pantović, explica que o romance “é sobre a busca pela verdade”. A história tem como protagonista Ama, uma sacerdotisa africana.

Nataša Pantović escolheu como cenário para “A-Ma: Alchemy of Love” a Macau do século XVII e colocou como protagonistas Ama, uma sacerdotisa africana a morar na região, Ruben, um padre jesuíta português e Benedito, um cristão ortodoxo. Ama reunia artistas, pregadores, padres e filósofos de todo o mundo, dentro dos cenários mágicos do seu café. O livro explora o crescimento rápido de Macau, quer nos horizontes das cidades, quer nas mudanças socioeconómicas.

Retratando a vida na Europa e em Macau no século XVII, a obra é vista como uma fábula histórica e dos hábitos e costumes dos chineses e dos portugueses que viviam em Macau. O livro tem 12 capítulos e Nataša Pantović coloca Deus e outros espíritos a narrar a acção.

A autora do livro, que foi publicado originalmente em 2016, deu agora uma entrevista ao jornal maltês Times of Malta, onde explicou que o romance foi escrito “do ponto de vista da personagem principal, Ama”.

“Todas as minhas personagens têm fortes compromissos políticos, ideológicos e morais, as suas ideias são inovadoras, é uma ciência contra a Igreja, homem contra mulher, uma conversa do Oriente com o Ocidente”, explicou a escritora com ascendência maltesa e sérvia. Neste caso, o tema central é “a busca pela verdade”.

A filosofia da Grécia antiga também é abordada neste livro. Questionada sobre as influências filosóficas, a autora respondeu apenas: “As mudanças que presenciei durante a minha vida foram enormes. Emocionalmente, mentalmente e fisicamente, temos de adoptar diferentes padrões de comportamento, não apenas sobreviver, mas prosperar sem abusar dos outros grupos sociais ou animais ou colocar o planeta Terra em perigo”.

“O facto de haver uma percentagem da população que não vê televisão, não lê jornais e que ainda é capaz de pensar, de apreciar arte ou dançar e cantar, e é capaz de pensar de forma criativa, faz parte do fascínio pela minha investigação”, atirou a autora.

A autora vê Hermann Hesse e Leo Tolstoy como os seus primeiros “guias espirituais”: “Através das suas percepções profundas e mensagens emocionantes, pela primeira vez experimentei o mundo do crescimento espiritual e contemplação profunda”. A escritora diz ter sido influenciada por outros artistas, e destaca Leonardo da Vinci, Lao Tzu e Giordano Bruno....

Nataša Pantović