“Semezdin Memedinović charts the collapse of a world with heartbreaking clarity and precision . . . Conveys the same clear-eyed passion for the truth that one finds in the young Hemingway, the Hemingway of our time.”
—PAUL AUSTER, author of 4 3 2 1 and The Brooklyn Follies
“Sarajevo Blues is widely considered here to be the best piece of writing to emerge from the besieged capital since Bosnia’s war erupted in April 1992.”
—The Washington Post
“Mr. Mehmedinović 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 . . . The mundane and the terrible merged in Sarajevo. Mr. Mehmedinović takes the reader there.”
—PHOEBE LOU ADAMS, The Atlantic
“[The] ability to masterfully delineate even the simplest moments but somehow remain tactfully indifferent is Mehmedinović’s most invaluable attribute . . . 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 . . . A memorable literary achievement.”
—Library Journal