From the Publisher

"Poetic and moving . . . of the many books written on Bosnia, this collection of stories is perhaps the best."-Slavenka Drakulic´

Sarajevo Marlboro is Miljenko Jergovic´'s remarkable debut collection of stories. Jergovic´ is a child of Sarajevo who remained in the city throughout the war. A dazzling storyteller, he brings a profoundly human, razor-sharp -understanding of the fate of the city's young Muslims, Croats, and Serbs with a subterranean humor and profoundly personal vision. Their offbeat lives and daily -dramas play out in the foreground, the killing zone in the background.

Miljenko Jergovic was born in Sarajevo in 1966. A poet and journalist, he writes for the daily Oslobodjenje newspaper. He has written another collection of stories as well as two novels: Buick Riviera and Mama Leone. His work has been translated extensively throughout the world.

Stela Tomasevic (Translator) was born in Belgrade in 1963. She studied literature at the University of East -Anglia. She has translated numerous works of nonfiction from the Serbo-Croatian and from the French. She currently works for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Former -Yugoslavia.

Ammiel Alcalay (Introduction) is a scholar, critic, trans-lator and poet. In his own words, "My immersion in a -diversity of languages and cultures has shaped and informed my place within American culture. I have come to see myself as a conveyor of ideas, texts, histories, cultural encounters and narrative points of view that, for a variety of reasons, have not gotten the attention they merit."

Library Journal

Almost every part of the globe that has seen war has also seen an emergence of books probing the experience, whether as straightforward storytelling, romanticism, or magical realism. Bosnia is no exception, but this collection of stories is in no way "yet another book" on the subject-it is probably the most effective of the lot in its portrayal of the mundane human experience. Jergovic, a native Sarajevan who has in recent years become a literary celebrity in the region, truly tells it like it is by zooming in on the ways in which war creeps into the lives of ordinary citizens, not only when it is already raging but also before it begins. "If the war spreads, heaven forbid, I'm well prepared," proclaims Mr. Ivo in one story. "If it doesn't, so what? I had a lot of fun digging up my garden." What better way than this to convey the nature of a mentality so deeply rooted in dark humor and paradox? The concluding story, "The Library," offers a powerful interpretation of the roles that books played during the worst of times and the horrible ways in which they perished alongside those who value them. An indispensable purchase. [For an excerpt of "The Library" and an interview with fledgling publisher Archipelago, see p. 165.]-Mirela Roncevic, "Library Journal" Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0972869220
  
• ISBN-13: 9780972869225
• Format: Paperback, 180pp
• Publisher: Archipelago Books
• Pub. Date: December 2003
• Sales Rank: 691,114

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents