Sarajevo Firewood

by Khatibi, Saïd; Starkey, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781913043230
• ISBN10: 1913043231
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2022-06-01
• Publisher: Banipal Publishing

Summary

Sarajevo Firewood, which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) award in 2020, explores the legacy of the recent histories of two countries – Algeria and Bosnia and Herzegovina – both of which experienced traumatic, and ultimately futile, civil wars in the 1990s.

The novel narrates the lives of two main characters, with their friends and families: Salim, an Algerian journalist, and Ivana, a young Bosnian woman, both of whom have fled the destruction and hatred of their own countries to try to build a new life in Slovenia. As Ivana pursues her goal of writing her ‘dream play’, Khatibi’s novel brings to life in fictional form the memories and experiences of the countless ordinary people who survived the atrocities linking the two countries.

As such, it represents both a lasting memorial to the thousands of dead and ‘disappeared’ of the two countries’ civil conflicts, and a powerful and novel exploration of the experience of exile to which so many have been subjected over the last few decades.

Author Biography

Saïd Khatibi is a novelist, travel writer, translator and cultural journalist, born in 1984 in Bou Saâda, Algeria. He writes in Arabic and French and translates between both. He has a BA in French Literature from the University of Algiers and an MA in Cultural Studies from the Sorbonne. Sarajevo Firewood is his third novel in Arabic (first in English translation) and was shortlisted for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. His other novels are Kitab al-Khataya (Book of Errors) Editions ANEP, 2013, and Arba‘un ‘aman fi intidhar Izabil (Forty Years Waiting for Isabelle), 2016.

Paul Starkey is an award-winning translator and Emeritus Professor of Arabic, Durham University, UK. His fiction translations include Praise for the Women of the Family by Mahmoud Shukair, Fractured Destinies by Rabai Al-Madhoun and The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa, and works by Mansoura Ez Eldin (Maryam’s Maze), Adania Shibli (We Are All Equally Far From Love), Youssef Rakha (The Book of the Sultan’s Seal), Rashid al-Daif (Dear Mr Kawabata), Edwar al-Kharrat (Stones of Bobello), Turki al-Hamad (Shumaisi), Mahdi Issa al-Saqr (East Winds, West Winds), Jurji Zaydan (Saladin and and the Assassins).