pickI initially really struggled to get into this book, as it‘s told in short nonsequential bits. But it‘s on the National Book Award longlist for translated list, so I really wanted to give it a try and ultimately I‘m glad I did. It ended up coming together really well for me, ready more like a memoir until the delightful final section with a major format change. Very interesting immigration story.
#BookReport 49/22
I read three books this week. The tagged one I read in Dutch and was a difficult book. I enjoyed Ocean State a lot, as well as An African in Greenland, the last book I will read for #readingAfrica2022.
so-soThis book was difficult to read, not in language but in style. The author tells about his life as a refugee in Germany, about his youth in Bosnia and about returning there after the devastating war that divided Yugoslavia and its people. Chapters are short, snippets of his memories. This made it hard to connect even though I am very interested in the Balkan war as well as in reading about life as a refugee in Europe.
#FoodAndLit 🇩🇪
In Germany lots of older people spend the twilight of their lives in places like this. Is that what they call it, the twilight of their life? There are discussions with the family early on, agreements with friends to live in the same place once they can't live alone anymore ...
In Bosnia, there aren't many senior facilities. Grandmother would probably have fallen off the stove every day rather than voluntarily gone into a home.
...it was practically impossible for freelance artists - especially a) writers and b) clowns....
Relative pronouns. A country whose language you can speak is not necessarily more your country...
In the evenings, your war comes on for a little while. You change the channel: Die Hard with Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis speaks German. You understand Bruce Willis just fine. But things aren't going too well for Bruce Willis, physically. "Yippie-ki-yay, Schweinebacke," he says, and you get out your vocab notebook.
We imagined our Heidelberg home as a short-term escape from the unreality of the war, which had become reality. If we had to flee today, or if the conditions at the 1992 border were as restrictive as they are at the EU borders now, we would never have reached Heidelberg. The trip would have ended at a Hungarian barbed wire fence.
Oskoruša sounds harsh and grumpy. No syllable you can cling to, zero rhythm, a bizarre sequence of sounds.... Hard and Slavic, the way things end in the Balkans.
I could leave that in, people would probably accept it from me, seeing as I'm from the Balkans myself. Hard Slavic endings? ....
Actually, though, the image makes no sense. What are we supposed to picture as these "hard Slavic endings"?
She was curt, not wanting to talk about herself. Only when I asked about other people, about neighbors, did she give longer answers: "No one's died or gone crazy since the last time you were here. Rada's still around, Zorica's still around. And Nada up on the fifth floor. They're only a little crazy. It happens as you get older. But it's okay. It's good they're here. Even crazy I like them."
#WeeklyForecast 40/22
I hope to finish Booth this week. Still enjoying it. I also started Gravel Heart for #ReadingAfrica2022 and because I have wanted to read Gurnah ever since he won the Noble Prize. The tagged book has won major European literary prices and feels like a book I need to read. So these are my plans!
pickA Yugoslavian boy is a refugee in Germany is part of the premise, but is the background for the best parts of this book. The boy traces his relationships with his grandparents, with his grandmother‘s dementia getting a starring role. The ending is so playful, that it deserves a 5/5 star recommendation😁
Really enjoying Saša Stanišic's autobiographical novel about his childhood and teenage years in Visegrad and Heidelberg (pictured above). I like Stanišic's self-deprecating humour and his eye for strange details.
#Yugoslavia #WarRefugee #BosnianWar #Germany
pickStanišić is an impressive writer, using a foreign language much better than most of the Germans do. In this book he tells us what it means to flee from a terrible war, to learn a new language and about the importance of the family. Highly recommend especially to readers who know people from Ex-Yugoslavia.
HERKUNFT | 
