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 war in Bosnia-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 . 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. " Sarajevo Blues is widely considered here to be the best piece of writing to emerge from this besieged capital since Bosnia's war erupted in April 1992."— Washington Post "A Supreme masterpiece witnessed and redeems with total detachment. I have experienced this only twice in my life: with Zoran Mušic's drawings from Dachau and Semezdin Mehmedinovic's Sarajevo Blues . This book will be a classic."—Tomaž Šalamun, The book for my brother " Sarajevo Blues is at once a battle report and a philosophical investigation. In poems, micro-essays, and prose vignettes, Semezdin Memedinovic charts the collapse of a world with heart-breaking clarity and precision. His book conveys the same clear-eyes passion for the truth that one finds in the young Hemingway, the Hemingway of in our time ."—Paul Auster, Book of Illusions Semezdin Mehmedinovic was born in Tuzla, Bosnia in 1960 and is the author of four books. In 1993 he was cowriter and codirector, with Benjamin Filipovic, of Mizaldo , one of the first Bosnian films shot during the war. The film was presented at the Berlin Film Festival in 1994, and won the first prize at the Mediterranean Festival in Rome the following year. He, his wife, and their child left Bosnia and came to the U.S. as political refugees in 1996. His collection of poetry Nine Alexandrias is Number 56 in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series. Just when you think you've become "immune" to one of the greatest calamities of the century?the merciless war in Bosnia?a writer like Mehmedinovic comes along and "slaps you in the face" all over again. This collection of short stories and poems is far more than just the reminiscences of a man who not only witnessed but lived the war. Yes, perhaps we've heard this before, but how often do we really "see" this wretched, surreal, yet all too real picture of someone else's misfortune? This ability to masterfully delineate even the simplest moments but somehow remain tactfully indifferent is Mehmedinovic's most invaluable attribute?notably vivid in the short stories. It is as if you are being "pulled" into this world, where the vigor of his words and the sharpness of his eye lead the way. The next you know, you've not only read a memorable literary achievement, but it educates you about the war in a way countless journalistic accounts never could.?Mirela Roncevic, "Library Journal" Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. ...Mehmedinovic's slender book forcefully conveys a sense of the utter helplessness of his characters. -- The New York Times Book Review , Vesna Neskow Alifakovac Animals At The Edge Of Town August, 1989 Back Then Bernard-henri Levy Cat The Chetnik Position Cisterns / Rainwater Corpse Crows Curfew Dates Deserter Essay Exodus Expulsion Fires Freedom Getting Thinner Glass Grbavica Grenade Hero Imam Bey's Mosque In The Studio Innocent Civilians Kids Lapisnica / Eduard Limonor Lilies Lion's Looted Stores Loss A Martyr's Resting Place Massacre Milomir Kovacevic New Experience No Man's Land The Phone Rings Photographers Politics A Relatively Calm Day Ruins Shelter Sign Singular Dream Spirituality Stocking Hat Stranger Surplus History Traffic Tunnel Vestibule War War Profiteers Washing The Dead What Will You Remember? White Death Wounded Parks Zambak / Muslims Zenica Blues -- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® Mr. Mehmedinovic left his native Bosnia in 1996, but his record of the horrifying events he observed there is vividly immediate. In short pieces of prose and poetry the author recaptures the stoicism created by constant danger and the incongruous survival of pre-war habits. A woman, a Chetnik gunner, sunbathes semi-nude between shots. Cigarettes still come wrapped, but in any paper that is handy, which "might be toilet paper or even pages from a book so that in the leisure time tobacco affords you can read fragments of a poem or the ingredients of a bar of soap." The mundane and the terrible merged in Sarajevo. Mr. M