In the Liberation obituaries I find that F. has died. She was the prettiest girl at the Sarajevo Philosophy Faculty, Class of 1974. My roommate in the student dorm Drank day and night because of her, but she once told me “I like you better.” There was no love between us. I caressed her once on a shaded bench on […]
“Hello?” Saša answered. “Hello, it’s Adin, hello . . .” From the phone booth, I raised my voice over the clattering of a passing streetcar. “Adin, man! You’re alive? Alive, damm, you’re alive! Where are you calling from?” “From Zagreb.” “Yeah, I can hear you’re in Zagreb. How did you get out? Man, I thought you were dead. You went […]
Autumn Has Come, My Quince, Early Autumn Autumn has come, my quince,* early autumn, From autumn to autumn, The whole village is already married off, My quince, run to me, To your dear friend… Every night, my quince, every day, I count the hours, I think of you! My quince, I am dying for you! Be mine, my treasure! Don’t […]
The borders of great civilizations, as we know from the ‘new historians,’ are drawn by the zones of the major agricultural cultures – of the olive and the grapevine… Bosnian everyday culture is characterized by…. the plum. Ivan Lovrenović When Simo is at work, I always watch Sarajevo TV. Well, it’s not called Sarajevo TV any longer, rather some sort […]
In a study of families and marriage practices carried out before World War II in what was called the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at that time, Vera Stein Erlich described a distinctive feature of marriage in Bosnia. She said that “In patriarchal regions [referring to Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia] the bride was chosen almost exclusively and autonomously by the parents of […]
The evening after the funeral, a pigeon descended for the first time on the window, carried by the noiseless fan of spread wings. At first sight it was ordinary, a grey pigeon with unsymmetrically painted stains of white and blue feathers. He didn’t coo, but with a lazy step he balanced his weight like a tired acrobat on his last […]
K&T Meats is my favorite butcher shop on Broadway, in Astoria. It resembles me of those in Vitez, Maglai, and other small Bosnian towns, except this one’s jointly owned by six or seven immigrants—Greeks and Romanians—who, apart from English, speak a meat-market hash of all the Balkan languages, even Hungarian, since their customers’ meat recipes, products, and foods come from […]
The poetry collection Hyperborea, by our longstanding contributor Milorad Pejić, was awarded a newly established prize “Slovo Makovo – Mak Dizdar” for the best poetic work published last year in the Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian, and Serbian language. The Prize was established at the initiative of Dr. Alija Behmen, Mayor of the City of Sarajevo, and was a result of the […]
AWARD In the courtyard of the National Library, workers are loading a truck filled to the brim with obsolete books, sentenced to death by combustion in the city’s heating plant in order to free shelf space for new popular items. The truck moves and a few lighter copies drop onto the sidewalk. A thin one with a maroon paperback cover […]
frankenstorm’s trick-or-treating forcing a delicate village maiden into split-second decisions – what kind of shoes are appropriate for the 10 block blackout venture to the nearest smart phone charging outpost oh my gosh my atm card doesn’t work either it’s like it’s… what was the name of that movie?
The end of the world is happening every day, every evening and morning The four riders of the apocalypse are thundering over our heads. Do you hear them? Gliding from Bosnia to Rwanda, Afghanistan, they gallop to Iraq and Libya The first horseman, on a white horse, the conqueror, seduces people, drives them mad The second rider is on a […]
After Tin Ujević’s Fisharmonika No notebooks map my soul. Accordion Strains and fingering capture the terrain. In country lanes membranous bats drop Like cataracts. All dream? Does dreaming stop? Earth sprouts a wig. That moon’s a myth From yellowed picture-postcards I’m besotted with. We went by road, the long route, just to find— Too late—it looped to all we’d left […]
All who stroll by the popular seaside promenade known as Šetnica, located not far from Trpnj on the peninsula Peljesac in Croatia, have the opportunity to be reminded of all the misfortunes and tragedy of the previous war. Namely, on one of the stone boulders by the promenade almost every year from 1976 to 1990 is written next to the […]
It’s getting dark. And in the west somebody’s foot has tipped over a wine jug, pouring it all over the horizon. The new moon looks like the horns of the helmet in which Moses appears in movies. Pines smell of lemons and incense mingled. A soldier, tall and brittle like a rye stalk, is doing sentry duty. Brittle with love […]
A man who has never known suffering cannot be self-reliant, nor can he recognize his own value. —Joseph de Maistre We who passed through the siege of Sarajevo shall, of course, gain nothing. An experience that will serve no purpose: as if you lost your arms and won a violin, as Rasko would say. You can’t even tell others about […]
Tošo Dabac Archive
Dr. Midhat Ridjanović, professor emeritus of English and linguistics at the University of Sarajevo, recently published a major work on the Bosnian language – BOSNIAN FOR FOREIGNERS : With a Comprehenisve Grammar. It is a product of many years of research and writing, in which Professor Ridjanovć brought to bear his life-long involvement in language teaching and linguistics on a […]
Here lies Hlapic Tihmilich And this stone I carved with my own hands while still alive, so even when dead, I can still have a dream from my life for ages. And bless the one who will pass by, and curse the one who will overturn it. June 1417 A. D. Here lies Ahmat Stuk on his noble heritage. Let […]
At the far end of death the hues shall be better Translated by Keith Doubt and Wayles Browne © 2012 Keith Doubt and Wayles Browne
It was December 1992, the last day before winter break. I entered the school where I had been a teacher and principal for 15 years with nothing on my mind but the coming day, my students, and the lesson I would teach. Murisa, custodian and my dear friend, changed my mood in an instant. Her look of worry and fear […]