The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

I really had no idea what I would be reading about. The novel itself seems to answer this question since we follow the very slow changes in several main characters from those who sort of accept this horror of the war as the new reality, but yet do eventually give up that path and return as citizens of the “old” Sarajevo. One character in this novel wonders what is the reality of Sarajevo? Is it the historic beautiful city of its history and renown, or is the “real” Sarajevo this hell of the four years of war, the 10,000 dead and 50,000 wounded. THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO By Steven Galloway The work of an expert, The Cellist of Sarajevo is a controlled and subtle piece of craftsmanship.Book review - By Steven Galloway – THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO Reviews of Nobel Prize winner

Galloway's style is sparse, pared down his prose has the deceptive simplicity of a short story. Only the cellist and his music brings hope - hope that mankind is still capable of humanity, that the old world is not completely lost, that the war has not destroyed everything. They are worn out with war, fearful of what will become of them and their loved ones. The characters of Arrow and the cellist are based upon real people, but in his examination of their feelings and motives, Galloway makes them his own. Galloway threads these individual stories together, narratives crisscrossing: three weeks in the lives of individuals struggling to survive as their beloved city is besieged. He no longer knows which is the real Sarajevo: the one he sees today or the one in his memories, 'where people were happy, treated each other well, lived without conflict'. If he dies, what will happen to his family? The last of Galloway's four characters, the baker Dragan, lives mostly in the past. He dare not take his household to help for fear they will be killed by the snipers. While Arrow is pursued through the city, and the cellist plays in the ruins, Kenan is collecting water from the brewery for his family and neighbour. She shoots only soldiers they kill unarmed civilians. He goes on to do this every day for 22 days, one day for each victim.Īrrow believes she's different from the snipers on the hills around the city.

He positions a stool in a crater and begins once again to play the Adagio. After 24 hours, he carries his cello down to the carnage-strewn street. The cellist stands at the window all night and all the next day.

Seconds later, a shell explodes in the marketplace and they are killed. He is playing Albinoni's Adagio while outside a queue of people wait to buy bread.

Steven Galloway's third novel, set in Bosnia's capital during the civil war of the Nineties, opens with a cellist sitting by a window.

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway