The seventh
day of my Book Advent Calendar brings us to “G” and I’m recommending Steven Galloway's
third novel which was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award and longlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Day
Seven: The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway
4
Stars
The novel
is set in Sarjevo in the early 1990s during the longest siege in modern history
(almost 4 years). It was inspired by the
true story of Vedran Smailović who played his cello every afternoon for 22 days
on the spot where 22 people were killed by a bomb while queuing in a bread
line.
The book is
a set of sketches of ordinary people: a
young father making a long, weekly trek for water, a lonely senior citizen
whose family escaped to Italy, and a young woman who has become a sniper. No ethnic or religious identifiers are
given. The main characters are simply
referred to as Sarajevans and their common enemy described only as “the men in
the hills.”
Obviously,
the book is about the effects of war on human beings. They all lose some of their humanity amidst
the struggle to get bread and water and not to die. Before the end of the novel, all three characters
have to decide whether they will allow the war to make decisions for them or they
will do what is right even if it means they will not survive. The reader is certainly left to wonder what
he/she would do if faced with similar circumstances.
The novel
also explores the role of art in the face of violence. The author’s answer seems to be that art can
reconnect us with humanity. The cellist’s
music “wouldn’t bring anyone back from the dead, wouldn’t feed anyone, wouldn’t
replace one brick,” yet it has redemptive power because it can help heal a
battered city, mentally if not physically.
At the end, one is left feeling the triumph of the human spirit in the face of atrocity and
despair.
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