Semezdin Mehmedinović Bücher

Von einem der bekanntesten Dichter und Schriftsteller Bosniens: karge und eindringliche Geschichten und Gedichte, die unter den schrecklichen Umständen des jüngsten Krieges in Bosnien-Hercegovina entstanden sind. Semezdin Mehmedinović blieb während der Belagerung durch die serbischen Nationalisten Bürger von Sarajevo und war während des Krieges aktiv in der Widerstandsbewegung der Stadt, als einer der Redakteure der Zeitschrift Phantom der Freiheit. Sarajevo Blues wurde ursprünglich Ende 1992 veröffentlicht und war das erste Buch der Reihe Biblioteka "egzil-abc", die in Ljubljana herausgegeben wurde und bosnischen Schriftstellern und Übersetzern unter Belagerung oder im Exil ein Forum bot. Semezdin Mehmedinović sagt, dass "Schreiben schließlich eine sehr persönliche Angelegenheit ist, die wenig Sinn macht, es sei denn, man übt für das letzte Wort." Für die Bosnier, die aus der Belagerung hervorgehen oder noch im Exil leben, bleiben diese "letzten Worte" intime Besitztümer, eines der letzten Bollwerke gegen die Kommerzialisierung von Tragödien.

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 and Herzegovina. 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. 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.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "Intelligent, honest, and full of heart," My Heart is an intimate work of autobiographical fiction by one of ex-Yugoslavia's greatest writers about his family's experience as refugees from the Bosnian war—a timeless story of love, memory, and the resilience of the human spirit that "has all the qualities one might seek in a friend" (Etgar Keret, author of The Seven Goods Years). "Today, it seems, was the day I was meant to die." When a writer suffers a heart attack at the age of fifty, he must confront his mortality in a country that is not his native home. Confined to a hospital bed and overcome by a sense of powerlessness, he reflects on the fragility of life and finds extraordinary meaning in the quotidian. In this affecting autobiographical novel, Semezdin Mehmedinovic explores the love he and his family have for one another, strengthened by trauma; their harrowing experience of the Bosnian war, which led them to flee for the United States as refugees; eerie premonitions of Donald Trump's presidency; the life and work of a writer; and the nature of memory and grief. Poetically explosive and pure to the core, My Heart serves as a kind of mirror, reflecting our human strengths and weaknesses along with the most important issues on our minds--love and death, the present and the past, sickness and health, leaving and staying.