Books - The Cellist of Sarajevo

I just finished a wonderful book a few days ago - the Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway. The book itself was very thought provoking - told from the perspective of three different protagonists, one of whom is a sniper for the defenders army. There is not much plot - instead the book focuses on the day to day lives of it's three characters, giving a real sense of what it must have been like to live in a city under siege. I first came across the story of the siege of Sarajevo when I was 11 or 12 and I read a book called Zlata's Diary. As the diary of the life of a girl my age living through the siege it made a huge impression on me, and later on I ended up specialising in modern Eastern European history for my degree.

However, what really caught my attention in the book, and what has often crept into my thoughts since, is the story of the man the book was based on. He is not a main character, rather he is a character each of the protagonists hear of - the cellist. what is so extraordinary is that his story is based on that of a real man, Vedran Smailović, a cellist who lived through the Sarajevo siege. At 10am on the 27th May 1992, 22 of his neighbours and fellow citizens, including women, children and the elderly, were killed when a shell hit a bread-line they were waiting in. In honour of their memories he risked his life by playing his cello in the crater left by the blast for 22 days, starting May 28th. Each day he played Albioni's 'Adagio in G minor' which had been found in pieces after the bombing of Dresden. This small act of defiance brought him fame, and has, I'm sure, inspired many who have hear about him.

Smailović himself is furious about the book, and what he sees as someone making money from his suffering. I'm torn - on the one hand I think he ought to have been consulted or warned about its publication by the author, as a matter of respect. On the other hand I'm thrilled to find someone showing the human aspect of warfare which so often gets overlooked, andam always happy when someone challenges our preconceptions as the author does. Overall I think this would be a wonderful novel for someone looking to learn more about the 1993 Bosnian war, or even just to gain an insight into human nature and survial.

P.S. For a brilliant look at human survival in wartime Janine di Giovanni's book "A Place at the End of the World" is really brilliant...