From the Publisher
This brilliant novel with universal resonance tells the story of
three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear
of desperate times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays
undaunted in their midst.
One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills twenty-two people
as the cellist watches from a window in his flat. He vows to sit in
the hollow where the mortar fell and play Albinoni's Adagio once a
day for each of the twenty-two victims. The Adagio had been
re-created from a fragment after the only extant score was
firebombed in the Dresden Music Library, but the fact that it had
been rebuilt by a different composer into something new and
worthwhile gives the cellist hope.
Meanwhile, Kenan steels himself for his weekly walk through the
dangerous streets to collect water for his family on the other side
of town, and Dragan, a man Kenan doesn't know, tries to make his
way towards the source of the free meal he knows is waiting. Both
men are almost paralyzed with fear, uncertain when the next shot
will land on the bridges or streets they must cross, unwilling to
talk to their old friends of what life was once like before
divisions were unleashed on their city. Then there is "Arrow," the
pseudonymous name of a gifted female sniper, who is asked to
protect the cellist from a hidden shooter who is out to kill him as
he plays his memorial to the victims.
In this beautiful and unforgettable novel, Steven Galloway has
taken an extraordinary, imaginative leap to create a story that
speaks powerfully to the dignity and generosity of the human spirit
under extraordinary duress.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Jacket
"For historians, the siege of Sarajevo might seem the appropriate
finale of the century that invented world wars, nuclear arms and
planet destruction. That is precisely the reason why Sarajevo
should belong to artists and not experts. In this vivid, passionate
and generous novel Galloway takes us there, to the very streets of
the besieged city. Snipers above us, cameras among us, shards of
dreams beneath us, and each wrong step can lead to death or, worse,
loss of dignity."
-Dragan Todorovic, author of The Book of
Revenge
"Steven Galloway's The Cellist of Sarajevo
is a wonderful story, a tribute to the human spirit in the
face of insanity."
-Kevin Baker, author of Dreamland and
Paradise Alley
"A gripping story of Sarajevo under siege."
-J. M. Coetzee
"I cannot imagine a lovelier, more beautifully wrought book about
the depravity of war as The Cellist of Sarajevo.
Each chapter is a brief glimpse at yet another aspect of the mind,
the heart, the soul -- altogether Galloway gives us fine, deep
notes of human music which will remain long after the final
page."
- ZZ Packer
"Though the setting is the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, this
gripping novel transcends time and place. It is a universal
story, and a testimony to the struggle to find meaning, grace, and
humanity, even amid the most unimaginable horrors." -Khaled
Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A
Thousand Splendid Suns
"Steven Galloway is a precocious writer of astonishing talent and
creative imagination whose third novel lives up, in every respect,
to the high bar set by his first two. The Cellist of
Sarajevo captures with taut, painstaking clarity the
events and atmosphere surrounding the siege of Sarajevo in the
1990s. . . . Galloway once again shows himself to be as gifted as
he is fearless. If it weren't for the fact that he teaches creative
writing, I'd say it was time to give up his day job."
- Emily Donaldson, Quill & Quire (starred
review)
"A darkly powerful novel about the insanity of war, the
anonymous dying of a city under siege. Written with elegance and
style, it is an unforgettable story about our limitless human
spirit in a time of tragedy." -Owen Sound Sun Times
"A story that speaks to the dignity and generosity of the human
spirit under duress." -The Guelph Mercury
"Gripping. . . . Every action, no matter how mundane, is charged
with tension. . . . Galloway has shown that contemporary fiction
can move beyond the minute examination of self and relationship. We
are asked to gaze, instead, on a city, a society, in the process of
being destroyed, and on the tiny human gestures that represent the
only means to repair the damage." -National Post
"Although Galloway's characters weigh the value of their lives
against the choices they must make, he effectively creates a fifth
character in the city itself, capturing the details among the
rubble and destruction that give added weight to his memorable
novel." -Booklist
"Undeniably suspenseful." -The Sydney Morning Herald
"A grand and powerful novel about how people retain or reclaim
their humanity when they are under extreme duress." -Yann
Martel's pick for
www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca
"Galloway delivers a tense and haunting novel. . . . With
wonderfully drawn characters and a stripped-down narrative,
Galloway brings to life a distant conflict." - Publishers
Weekly
"A novel about trying to cross the street. The description,
though, does not do justice to Galloway's spare, elegant prose or
to the haunting images the author creates in this fine and
affecting novel." -Edmonton Journal
"At once an expansion and a deepening of the thematic concerns
that weave themselves throughout his work and a glittering
testament to the power of art to counteract hatred and division. .
. . Galloway's novel, bursting with life, is a vivid reminder of
the power of art to dispel the darkness." -The Vancouver
Sun
"[V]ery nearly perfect, a galvanizing examination of the
strength of the human heart, and the possibility of the survival of
the human spirit in the most dire of circumstances. It will be
impossible for readers not to imagine themselves in these
characters' shoes, wondering what they would do in similar
circumstances. That personalization, which creates an understanding
of a tragedy previously only glanced over in the pages of the
morning paper, is, in itself, the highest of achievements."
-Ottawa Citizen
"Written in visceral, cinematic prose . . . Galloway's
compassionate story about the consequences of war is riveting from
beginning to end. It will undoubtedly linger in the minds of many
readers long after they finish it." -Winnipeg Free Press
"Sensuous and precise, Galloway's prose captures the unbidden
movement between personal and public space, the contradiction of
being trapped in a city one would not think of leaving, even if one
could. This portrayal of what it's like to live in the despair of
the present, but with an unkillable knowledge that things can be
otherwise, is what connects Galloway's characters-and his
novel-with the mission and the legacy of the cellist of its title."
-The Globe and Mail
"Perfect in that way only a true story can be. . . . [Galloway] is
a surprisingly mature and self-confident storyteller. . . . His
writing is meticulous and purposeful. War may be hell, but in this
novel it's an unsentimental, almost pedestrian hell and all the
more compelling for it. The Cellist of Sarajevo is
a sombre, stirring performance." -The Gazette
(Montreal)
From the Hardcover edition.
