Sarajevo Blues

by Mehmedinovic, Semezdin

• ISBN13: 9780872863453
• ISBN10: 087286345X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

From one of Bosnia's most prominent poets and writers: spare and haunting stories and poems that were written under the horrific circumstances of the recent war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Semezdin Mehmedinovic remained a citizen of Sarajevo throughout the Serbian nationalists' siege and was active throughout the war in the city's resistance movement, as one of the editor's of the magazine Phantom of Liberty. Sarajevo Blues was originally published at the end of 1992 and was the first book in the Biblioteka "egzil-abc" series, published in Ljubljana, which provided a forum for Bosnian writers and translators under siege or living in exile. Semezdin Mehmedinovic says that "writing is, finally, quite a personal thing that doesn't make much sense unless you are practicing for the last word." For those Bosnians emerging from the siege or still in exile, these "last words" remain intimate possessions, one of the last bastions left against the commodification of tragedy.

Table of Contents

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION	IX
LOSS	1	(3)
SINGULAR DREAM	4	(1)
CORPSE	5	(1)
AUGUST, 1989	6	(1)
THE PHONE RINGS	7	(1)
IN THE STUDIO	8	(1)
ALIFAKOVAC	9	(1)
STRANGER	10	(1)
ESSAY	11	(1)
DESERTER	12	(1)
SPIRITUALITY	13	(1)
STOCKING HAT	14	(10)
BACK THEN	24	(1)
AT THE EDGE OF TOWN	25	(1)
THE CHETNIK POSITION	26	(1)
EXPULSION	27	(1)
CISTERNS/RAINWATER	28	(1)
A RELATIVELY CALM DAY	29	(1)
NO MAN'S LAND	30	(1)
CROWS	31	(2)
GRBAVICA	33	(1)
A MARTYR'S RESTING PLACE	34	(1)
LILIES	35	(1)
CURFEW	36	(1)
GETTING THINNER	37	(1)
LOOTED STORES	38	(1)
IMAM BEY'S MOSQUE	39	(5)
INNOCENT CIVILIANS	44	(2)
FIRES	46	(1)
MILOMIR KOVACEVIC	47	(1)
LION'S	48	(1)
GLASS	49	(1)
ZAMBAK/MUSLIMS	50	(2)
KIDS	52	(1)
HERO	53	(1)
GRENADE	54	(2)
TRAFFIC	56	(1)
PHOTOGRAPHERS	57	(2)
WOUNDED PARKS	59	(1)
WAR PROFITEERS	60	(2)
WHITE DEATH	62	(1)
POLITICS	63	(1)
VESTIBULE	64	(2)
WHAT WILL YOU REMEMBER?	66	(2)
RUINS	68	(2)
WAR	70	(1)
ANIMALS	71	(1)
CAT	72	(2)
SHELTER	74	(2)
WASHING THE DEAD	76	(2)
EXODUS	78	(1)
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY	79	(1)
LAPISNICA/EDUARD LIMONOV	80	(1)
SIGN	81	(2)
MASSACRE	83	(1)
FREEDOM	84	(4)
SURPLUS HISTORY	88	(2)
NEW EXPERIENCE	90	(2)
TUNNEL	92	(5)
ZENICA BLUES	97	(8)
DATES	105	(1)
AN INTERVIEW WITH SEMEZDIN MEHMEDINOVIC	106
AMMIEL ALCALAY