I didn’t know your name, but you became a part of my soul at the instant of your death. I was sixteen, and the war in Bosnia had just begun. Simply walking on the street became a game of Russian roulette. Each step could be the last. Indeed, death seemed inevitable. Still, we took our chances in daily searches for […]
(a greeting) Twenty years before the first multiparty elections as I watched the sweltering road along the seacoast get rolled up on the wheels like spaghetti next to my father’s sweaty shoulder I was taking lessons in life I wondered why he (for no obvious reason) was honking now and then to the approaching cars and why they honked to […]
They taught us about the climate of Ethiopia, the sheep population of New Zealand. They taught us the area of the USSR and the countries we have borders with. When my next-door neighbor showed up wearing combat boots instead of slippers it occurred to me: the area of the USSR is subject to change as is the number of sheep […]
To Adin While the country I was born in was approaching its forced landing our life and football appetites were soaring high. Deaf and blind to the questions that’d started exploding right in our faces, we contemplated a starry future for ourselves, for posterity, for our national football team. Asked why he kept a player in the center of the […]
Those I know have all grown old, my scattered friends. The snow is getting rusty in Sweden, from the other side of the globe brief electronic messages buzz in: there’s a fire, or else there isn’t. No news is news anymore, they’ve heard it all – my tired friends. Memories are the only news we are still curious about. We […]
The earth has done its work. We wouldn’t have thought it, my brother and I, but a friend said to us “Your father’s gotten slimmer.” “Huh?” “His grave is sinking in!” We went to the gravedigger to order the gravestone. “Don’t worry,” he said, “everything will be just right.” But we wanted a solid gravestone, cost didn’t matter to us. […]
It’s a secret thought, it’s the smallest of worms That slowly nibbles and warms the blood How so? On an eyelash of dreams a little dust At a casual smile moist with fear It banishes all that’s gray and stiff from a head Born of a thought, it lives on hope What’s that? A purple smile in a singing wind […]
Who are we Bosnians of the Muslim faith and what do we want in our homeland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a region to which we are connected by heritage and historical background, and Europe in which we belong geo-politically and culturally? When the identity of a people is in question as well as those characteristics which define its identity, there […]
As indelible memories go, this basketball moment will be a lot less traumatic than the first one. Elmir Brkanić will be honored on the court tonight, Feburary 13th, 2009, at Wilberforce University’s Gaston Lewis Arena. It’s Senior Night, and the 6-foot-5 forward from Bosnia likely will be playing his final home game for the Bulldogs, who face Pittsburgh’s Point Park […]