SOURCE: Mukerji, Vanita Singh. “Personality and Perceptions of Reality in The Damned Yard.” In Ivo Andrić: A Critical Biography, pp. 131-39. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1990.

In the following excerpt, Mukerji explores the relationship between human interaction and the individual psyche in forming perceptions of reality.

When we form a judgment about people, their behavior and dispositions, it is necessary to bear in mind that people, for different reasons that do not depend on them, cannot speak the truth everywhere, always and about everything. Some do not see it, others see it upside down, which is the same or still worse, and yet others simply do not have the strength for that feat, because for people of that sort it is indeed a feat for which a certain minimal strength that is not given to them is required.

—Andrić, Signs by the Way¹

A novella about...