AD), in the Iraq cities of Basra and Baghdad and in Persia. In the framework of Islamic culture, the novel explores the relation between orthodox faith and mysticism, between the Arabic and Persian worlds, between male and female emotivity and experience of the world. The Arabic-Persian writer al-Muqaffa, the poet, mystic, and Sufi master al-Hallaj, and the philosopher and writer al-Tauhidi, all portrayed in confrontations with their persecutors – policemen and spies, profess esoteric teachings, and all esoteric religious and spiritual orientations are, as Dževad Karahasan says in his essay "Through Secret Gardens" from "Book of Gardens" (Knjiga vrtova, 2002), characterised by a belief that the world is divided into an outer and an inner sphere, of which the inner is the more valuable and the more real. This esoteric orientation leads the novel's protagonists into a conflict with the world: according to Dževad Karahasan, the rifts breeding hatred, excommunication, crime and war are engendered within the cultures and civilisations themselves rather than on their margins or borders. Each society has its 'different ones', the outcast, the persecuted, and the violence projected by us into the Other is actually present within the society itself. The other theme of Eastern Divan is the dialogue between male and female perceptions of the world, a dialogue established through the correspondence between al-Muqaffa, a Persian convert to Islam, and his wife. Their love letters crystallise two cultures, two views of the world, two ways of thinking and feeling.Uspješno transponujući borhesovske lavirinte i ogledala u duhovni ambijent Orijenta, Dževad Karahasan je uspio ostvariti "Istočni diwan" kao roman koji se 'čita u dahu', koji 'uvlači' u čitanje svojom uzbudljivošću, napetošću i mudrošću. I utoliko ovo djelo predstavlja jednu novu, svježu i vrijednu liniju savremenom romanu. "Istočni diwan" je djelo o sufijskom mučeniku i svecu Al-Halladžu, kompleksna studija u kojoj se preklapaju vjerno rekonstruirani ambijent Bagdada u 8. vijeku, refleksivni pasaži i egzistencijalno-spiritualna drama legendarnog martira, pjesnika i aforističkog mislioca. Za razliku od Selimovića u romanu "Derviš i smrt", Karahasan dobro poznaje problematiku sufijskog misticizma.

    i 1922. godine u Beogradu, ali delovi ove pripovetke su izlazili u zagrebačkom Književnom jugu. Iako je osnova za sadržinu i značenje Puta Alije Đerzeleza, Mustafe Madžara, Mosta na Žepi i Trupa pronađena u istoriji, legendi i sudbini pojedinca u njima, Andrić istoriju ne posmatra kao zbir poznatih i poverljivih događaja medju njenim učesnicima, niti legendu doživljava kao gotovu i nepromenljivu sižejnu činjenicu priče, nego kao adekvatnu početnu osnovu za dublje i postojanije shvatanje smisla i značenja istorije, legende u životu pojedinca i trajanju sveta. Vidi ih kao simboličan doživljaj istorije, kao pozornicu na kojoj se odvija čovekov susret sa neminovnostima svoje prolaznosti, nesavršenstva, straha i nemoći. Andrić’s first short story, published in 1920. Its protagonist is the hero of a large number of Moslem heroic ballads. Bearing in mind the special place accorded to “legend” and “fairy-tale” in Andrić’s statements about art, we should consider exactly what form “the grain of truth contained in legend” takes in this tale. The traditional ballads concerned with Alija deal exclusively with his prowess on the battlefield. Andrić refers to his fame in just one sentence: "He was renowed for many battles and his fearful strength... " and immediatelly takes him off his horse, setting him down in a context where he appears awkward because he is not used to being on the ground, or to normal social interaction. His stature is a t once diminished: “In a few days the magic circle around Đerzelez had quite disappeared. “There is no clear reason why the label “hero“ should have attached itself to this particular person. He is small, unprepossessing and ungainly as soon as he dismounts, awkward and uninteresting in conversation. He is slow-witted and chronically lacking in imagination. But he is also obsessive. Once he sees a beautiful woman he can think of nothing else but possessing her. Or he abandons himself wholeheartedly to the singing of a particularly fine traditional singer: “Đerzelez felt that the singer tugging at his soul and that any moment now, he would expire, from excessive strength, or excessive weakness. “ Đerzelez can flourish only in circumstances where his simple-minded strength energy can be expressed in the immediate violent ways he understands. He is quite baffled by more intricate social relationships and by the whole deeply disturbing question of women. Andrić here exploits the comic possibilities exposing a renowned hero to the demands made on men by their ballads about Marko Kraljević.

    It recounts the story of Sheikh Nuruddin, a dervish residing in an Islamic monastery in Sarajevo in the eighteenth century during the Ottoman Turk hegemony over the Balkans. When his brother is arrested, he must descend into the Kafkaesque world of the Ottoman authorities in his search to discover what happened to him. He narrates his story in the form of an elaborate suicide note, regularly misquoting the Koran. In time, he begins to question his relations with society as a whole and, eventually, his life choices in general. Hugely successful when published in the 1960s, Death and the Dervish is an enduring classic that was made into a feature length film in 1974.

    Croatian by birth, Jergovic ? spent his childhood in Sarajevo and chose to remain there throughout most of 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 in the foreground, the killing zone in the background.

    These stories about love and death, truth and lies, myth and reality range across many epochs and settings. Brilliantly combining fact and fiction, epic and miniature, horror and comedy, this was Danilo Kiš final work, published in Serbo-Croatian in 1983.Kiš is one of the great European writers of the post-war period - GuardianCompulsively readable - Daily Telegraph Fantasy chases reality and reality chases fantasy. Pirandello and Borges are not far away. But these names are intended as approximate references. Kiš is a new, original writer - Times Literary Supplement Intense and exotic, his mysteries hint at unspeakable secrets that remain forever beyond the story-teller's grasp - Boyd TonkinDanilo Kiš was born in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1935. After an unsettled childhood during the Second World War, in which several of his family members were killed, Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade where he lived for most of his adult life. He wrote novels, short stories and poetry and went on to receive the prestigious NIN Award for his novel Pešcanik. He died in Paris in 1989.

    In On the Edge of Reason, his protagonist is a middle-aged lawyer whose life and career have been eminently respectable and respected. One evening, at a party attended by the local elite, he inadvertently blurts out an honest thought. From this moment, all hell breaks loose.... On the Edge of Reason reveals the fundamental chasm between conformity and individuality. As folly piles on folly, hypocrisy on hypocrisy, reason itself begins to give way, and the edge between reality and unreality disappears.--back cover

    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.

    It begins as the day-today record of the life of a typical eleven-year-old girl, preoccupied by piano lessons and birthday parties. But as war engulfs Sarajevo, Zlata Filipovic becomes a witness to food shortages, the deaths of friends, and learns to wait out bombardments in a neighbor’s cellar. Yet throughout she remains courageous and observant. The result is a book that has the power to move and instruct readers a world away.

    But Tanja's act of academic rebellion incites the rage of one renegade member of her class—and pulls her dangerously close to another—which, in turn, exacerbates the tensions of a life in exile that has now begun to spiral seriously out of control.

    As ever with his work, he portrays both the perfect, intimate details (his mother's lonely upbringing, his father's fanatical beekeeping) and a sweeping, heartbreaking history of his native country. It is a story full of many Hemons, of course--his parents, sister, uncles, cousins--and also of German occupying forces, Yugoslav partisans, royalist Serb collaborators, singing Ukrainians, and a few befuddled Canadians.My Parents is Hemon at his very best, grounded in stories lovingly polished by retelling, but making them exhilarating and fresh in writing, summoning unexpected laughs in the midst of the heartbreaking narratives. This Does Not Belong to You, meanwhile, is the exhilarating, freewheeling, unabashedly personal companion to My Parents--a perfect dose of Hemon at his most dazzling and untempered in a series of beautifully distilled memories and observations and explosive, hilarious, poignant miniatures. Presented dos-à-dos with My Parents, it complements and completes a major work from a major writer.In the words of Colum McCann, "Aleksandar Hemon is, quite frankly, the greatest writer of our generation." Hemon has never been better than here in these pages. And the moment has never been more ready for his voice, nor has the world ever been more in need of it.

    All of the folly and the horror of that time are revealed in the sarcastic report of the novel's teenage would-be authoress.

    The book covers the full range of his work, including verse, essays and reflective prose as well as fiction. Celia Hawkesworth also provides an account of Andric's life, and the cultural history of his native Bosnia.>The story of the vizier's elephant --The bridge on the Žepa --In the guest-house --Death in Sinan's tekke --The climbers --A letter from 1920 --The house on its own : introduction --Alipasha --A story --The damned yard

    Drawing on firsthand observations of the trials, as well as on other sources, Drakulić portrays some of the individuals accused of murder, rape, torture, ordering executions and more, during one of the most brutal conflicts in Europe in the twentieth century, including former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević; Radislav Krstić, the first to be sentenced for genocide; Biljana Plavšić, the only woman accused of war crimes; and Ratko Mladić, now in hiding. With clarity and emotion, Drakulić paints a wrenching portrait of a country needlessly torn apart.

    This is the story of an Italian general, accompanied by his chaplain, charged with the mission of scouring Albania in search of the bones of their fallen countrymen, killed twenty years earlier during World War II.

    A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans, and the uneasy relationships amongst its ethnic groups. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country's history as well as its daily life.