Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book"

Brooks, Geraldine "People of the Book" - 2008

This is going to be one of my favourite books this year. Such a wonderful story about a book and its history. I have once read a similar story, well, not a similar story, just a book that tries to follow a piece of art, a painting from today into past until it was created. That was by Susan Vreeland and it was called "Girl in Hyacinth Blue". I loved that one and this was just as interesting.

The main "character" is the Sarajevo Haggada, a Jewish religious book that really exists (see here on Wikipedia or here on The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina website) The word "haggada" is Hebrew for telling, story or account, the book "Haggadah" is a text that describes the order of the Passover Seder.

There are books, even ancient ones, where you know exactly where they come from and who made them. This is not one. The author has put down some ideas and made a wonderful story about it that travels around the whole world. From the Australian conservationist who tries to find some clues that sound just like a crime story we travel back from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Italy, Austria, Spain and to the shores of Ifriqiya (modern day Tunisia, parts of Algeria and Libya). In between, we visit the Untied States and the United Kingdom where the protagonist does not only find out more about the book but also about her family.

I absolutely loved the whole story, how we get to know the different kinds of people who contributed first to the creation of the book and then to the saving of it. Some of the ideas might even be true. Well, we can always dream.

Remarks from the book club:
I partly felt the book was really interesting and wanted to know more about the old stories from history.
The parts about WWII always feel a little too close for comfort anyway.
The author's experience as a journalist shone through the story. But the present day frame-story felt slightly "puff-piece" kind of full with story gaps.
Overall still give it 4/5 or maybe even 4,5/5.

We read this in our international online book club in October 2023.

From the back cover:

"During World War II a Bosnian Muslim risks his life to save the book from the Nazis; it gets caught up in the intrigues of hedonistic 19th-century Vienna; a Catholic priest saves it from burning in the fires of Inquisition. These stories and more make up the secret history of the priceless Sarajevo Haggadah - a medieval Jewish prayer book recovered from the smouldering ruins of the war-torn city.
Now it is in the skilled hands of rare-book restorer Hanna Heath. And while the content of the book interests her, it is the hidden history which captures her imagination. Because to her the tiny clues - salt crystals, a hair, wine stains - that she discovers in the pages and bindings are keys to unlock its mysteries."

Stanišić, Saša "How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone"

Stanišić, Saša "How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone" (German: Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert) - 2006

I found this book a while ago and loved the title. Also, the story is taking place in Višegrad near the river Drina about which I read and loved the book "The Bridge on the Drina" by Ivo Andrić.

The author was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina, his family fled to Germany when he was a teenager. This story tells partly about his life before and after leaving his country. In the meantime, he has received several German book prizes for his literature which often reports about the war in Bosnia.

This novel is a semi-autobiographical one. The protagonist's life, Aleksandar Krsmanovic, mirrors that of the author, Saša Stanišić. The story is a little chaotic, jumps from one scene to a completely different one, sometimes comes back to it, sometimes just leaves it open. Thereby it shows how chaotic the life for a child in wartime has to be.

It wasn't an unpleasant read but I would have appreciated a little more consistency. I can see why the author is so acclaimed, though.

From the back cover:

"The hardcover publication of How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone launched Stanisic as an exciting and important new voice in literary fiction and earned exuberant praise from readers and critics alike. Now in paperback, Stanisic’s debut about a boy who experiences the Bosnian War and finds the secret to survival in language and stories is bound to dazzle a whole new readership.

For Aleksandar Krsmanovic, Grandpa Slavko’s stories endow life in Višegrad with a kaleidoscopic brilliance. Neighbors, friends, and family past and present take on a mythic quality; the River Drina courses through town like the pulse of life itself. So when his grandfather dies suddenly, Aleksandar promises to carry on the tradition. But then soldiers invade Višegrad - a town previously unconscious of racial and religious divides - and it’s no longer important that Aleksandar is the best magician in the nonaligned states; suddenly it is important to have the right last name and to convince the soldiers that Asija, the Muslim girl who turns up in his apartment building, is his sister.

Alive with the magic of childhood, the surreality of war and exile, and the power of language, every page of this glittering novel thrums with the joy of storytelling."

Filipović, Zlata "Zlata's Diary"

Filipović, Zlata "Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo" (Bosnian: Zlatin dnevnik: otroštvo v obleganem Sarajevu) - 1993

I recently read "Rose of Sarajevo" by Ayşe Kulin and remembered that I always wanted to read this book. My son read it in school and so it was in our house. No chasing after it in a bookshop or waiting until my library found it on an inter library exchange.

This is a wonderful account about a war. The interesting thing is that Zlata started this diary before the war where she is all girly and interested in all the stuff girls of her age are just interested in. so, we can see how her life changes with the war, how all she is interested in now is how to survive and how to find food. A brilliant way of showing the world that war destroys everything and punishes especially those that are innocent, most often women and children. A way of seeing the war through the eyes of a child.

Like Anne Frank in "The Diary of a Young Girl", she gives her diary a name (Mimmy) and like Anne Frank's diary, I think everyone should read this.

From the back cover:

"In a voice both innocent and wise, touchingly reminiscent of Anne Frank's, Zlata Filipovic's diary has awoken the conscience of the world. Now thirteen years old, Zlata began her diary just before her eleventh birthday, when there was peace in Sarajevo and her life was that of a bright, intelligent, carefree young girl. Her early entries describe her friends, her new skis, her family, her grades at school, her interest in joining the Madonna Fan Club. And then, on television, she sees the bombs falling on Dubrovnik. Though repelled by the sight, Zlata cannot conceive of the same thing happening in Sarajevo. When it does, the whole tone of her diary changes. Early on, she starts an entry to 'Dear Mimmy' (named after her dead goldfish): 'SLAUGHTERHOUSE! MASSACRE! HORROR! CRIMES! BLOOD! SCREAMS! DESPAIR!' We see the world of a child increasingly circumscribed by the violence outside. Zlata is confined to her family's apartment, spending the nights, as the shells rain down mercilessly, in a neighbor's cellar. And the danger outside steadily invades her life. No more school. Living without water and electricity. Food in short supply. The onslaught destroys the pieces she loves, kills or injures her friends, visibly ages her parents. In one entry Zlata cries out, 'War has nothing to do with humanity. War is something inhuman.' In another, she thinks about killing herself. Yet, with indomitable courage and a clarity of mind well beyond her years, Zlata preserves what she can of her former existence, continuing to study piano, to find books to read, to celebrate special occasions - recording it all in the pages of this extraordinary diary."

Kulin, Ayşe "Rose of Sarajevo"

Kulin, Ayşe "Rose of Sarajevo" (Turkish: Sevdalinka) - 1999

I remember the time of the Yugoslavian war very well. Yugoslavia had seemed a peaceful country with peaceful people, we had quite a few guest workers coming from there and the Yugoslavians I met were always very happy people. We had never heard them speaking of being Bosnians, Croatians or Serbs or anything else, just Yugoslavians. I even remember a very happy song about their country.

Then, all of a sudden, war breaks loose. It must have been a huge surprise to anyone involved and this story tells us all about it. We can't just learn about the way the Bosnians lived under the war, how they suffered, but also hear a lot about the history before it, the trial to understand how this all could happen. Well, as if people who want a war ever need a reason for it.

This is the story of a woman and her family, how they go through the war. The daughter evens starts a diary like Zlata Filipović in "Zlata's Diary".

In any case, we can learn a lot from this book. Hopefully stand up the next time such an atrocity happens. I learned from my Turkish book club members, that the author's family is originally Bosnian, that she has many links to the country. This wasn't mentioned in the book but I thought it was an interesting fact.

This is my first book by Ayşe Kulin but it will certainly not my last.

We discussed this in our book club in April 2016.

From the back cover: "Ever since Nimeta was a child, she’d done exactly what was expected of her. She married a responsible man she met in college, had two children, and established a busy journalism career - and there was no reason to think anything would ever change. Then one day, while reporting on a protest in Zagreb, Nimeta’s life takes a dramatic turn. Not only does she lay eyes on a handsome reporter who captures her heart, but a little-known politician by the name of Slobodan Milosevic delivers a speech fanning the flames of long-dormant Serbian nationalism. As her love affair intensifies and political tensions build, Nimeta is forced to reconsider everything she thought she knew about family, love, loyalty, and humanity itself. Navigating both the new landscape of her heart and that of her beloved war-torn city, Nimeta must draw upon her deepest reserves of inner strength to keep her family safe.
A moving drama set against the backdrop of the crisis that rocked the Balkans in the 1990s, Rose of Sarajevo reveals the tremendous lengths people will go to in the name of love."

Andrić, Ivo "The Bridge on the Drina"

Andrić, Ivo "The Bridge on the Drina" (Serbo-Croat: На Дрини Ћуприја or Na Drini Ćuprija) - 1945

This is the story of a bridge. From the day it was built in the 16th century up until a couple of hundred years later in the 20th.

It is amazing what such a building or the river below it goes through during the centuries. We people only live a very short time compared to anything around us. In the long run, the life of one person is nothing compared to history.

The author manages to describe this very well. The river runs smoothly, or sometimes not so smoothly, and so does the history of man. Leaders come and go, war rages, natural catastrophes, the bridge still stands and watches over the lives of the people who cross the river.

Reading this makes you almost feel like being the bridge seeing the river flow below you.

But it also shows you a lot of the history of the Balkans that was always in the middle of the Western and Eastern Empires, the Occident and the Orient. As with most Eastern literature, there is quite a bit of poetry in the book, as well. You might want to concentrate on one part at the time. The book certainly brings you to a different part of this world.

Once you read it, you will understand why he was awarded the Nobel Prize for just writing one piece of fiction. It is a masterpiece.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the small Bosnian town of Visegrad the stone bridge of the novel's title, built in the sixteenth century on the instruction of a grand vezir, bears witness to three centuries of conflict. Visegrad has long been a bone of contention between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, but the bridge survives unscathed until 1914, when the collision of forces in the Balkans triggers the outbreak of World War I.

The bridge spans generations, nationalities and creeds, silent testament to the lives played out on it. Radisav, a workman, tried to hinder its construction and is impaled alive on its highest point; beautiful Fata leaps from its parapet to escape an arranged marriage; Milan, inveterate gamble, risks all in one last game on it. With humour and compassion, Andric chronicles the lives of Catholics, Moslem's and Orthodox Christians unable to reconcile their disparate loyalties."

Ivo Andrić received received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961 "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.