The Cellist of Sarajevo

I just finished Steven Galloway's The Cellist of Sarajevo. I admit I came to it with my defenses up a little. I had heard so much praise for it, and the first four pages of the book contain glowing reviews from all the usual authoritative sources. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I have a strange

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resistance to books that everyone loves. I don't want to have the same response to it as everybody else!

But this isn't a book that you can dismiss as the latest literary fad. It felt like leaning over a well and falling in — and by the time I felt myself falling, I didn't want to stay on the brim. Galloway's sensitive style drew me in with a gentle urgency. There are horrors described in this book, but they never overtake the humanity of the characters.

The story follows four people who live in Sarajevo during what is called the Siege of Sarajevo in the early 90s. They are just ordinary people: the cellist who plays Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor for twenty-two days at the site of a bombing that killed twenty-two people; Arrow, the young woman who has become a sniper and is set to guard the cellist from an enemy's bullet; Kenan, a father and husband who struggles with the task of carrying water through his war-torn city; and Dragan, a older man whose wife and son escaped the city before the siege began.

To me, the most fascinating character was Arrow. Kenan and Dragan blurred together a bit. The passages describing the cellist were wonderful, but we never really get into his head like we do with Arrow. Her final scene, the last of the book, is very powerful — one of those that you remember through years of other books and stories.

The afterword notes that the story isn't historically possible, as Galloway has compressed the events of a three-year siege into a little less than a month. The author writes that he hopes the book is true to the spirit of what happened, and I believe he has succeeded.

The book is written in the present tense. This isn't a favorite style of mine to read, but as the book went on, I understood the choice. It puts you in the action — not just the physical realities of gunfire and shells, but the war-torn emotional landscape. What will the characters choose to do? Will they yield to what seems to be necessity? Or will they make a last stand that is as futile as it is beautiful amidst the carnage? Perhaps "futile" should be redefined...

I can't claim the eloquence of the many literati who have read and loved this book. I will simply say that it gripped me, that it took me to a place so different from my world, and that it is not a book I will forget. It made me think and it made me hurt and it made me hope. Recommended.

Thank you to the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program for the opportunity to review this book.

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She knows that twenty-two people died here and a multitude were injured, will not walk or see or touch again. Because they tried to buy bread. A small decision. Nothing to think about. You're hungry, and come to this place where maybe they will have some bread to buy. ... And then some men on the

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hills send a bomb through the air to kill you. For them, it was probably just one more bomb in a day of many. Not notable all. (p. 82)

The siege of Sarajevo took place between April 1992 and February 1996, killing approximately 10,000 people. The city was repeatedly shelled, and snipers took up posts in the surrounding hills, firing on unsuspecting victims. Following the May, 1992 bombing of a bakery, a local cellist played Albinoni's Adagio in G minor every day for twenty-two days, in memory of the dead. Each day he would quietly take his place in the street, putting his own life at tremendous risk. The title character of this novel is based on that cellist. Other characters include Arrow, a young woman caught up in the fighting, and sent to protect the cellist from snipers; Dragan, struggling to survive after sending his wife and son to safety in Italy; and Kenan, a young husband and father who routinely traverses the dangerous city streets to get water for his family and an elderly neighbor. None of these characters know each other, but their stories are loosely intertwined around the cellist.

The real power of this book was in its portrayal of war-torn Sarajevo, and the impact of the struggle for survival on its people. Kenan put himself in grave danger to fetch water, and during his journey across town, he imagined a better time for his family where they will once again be able to visit restaurants and go on long walks eating ice cream. Dragan's story centered on one particular day where he attempted to cross a street on his way to the bakery. He was paralyzed with fear of the snipers who had set their sights on the street that afternoon. And then there was Arrow, who became involved in the conflict after losing her own family. She also lost both her youth and her happiness. Each character's life was changed irrevocably: food shortages took a toll on their bodies, and frequent contact with death shattered their spirits.

Every time I read a book like The Cellist of Sarajevo, I wonder what it is about humankind that makes us do such things to one another.

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This book should be depressing. I should be plumbing the depths of evocative despair and heart-twisting grief and soul-wrenching sympathy at the condensed suffering of the Siege of Sarajevo as presented by Stephen Galloway. And yet I’m not. And yet, it feels beautiful, achingly so. It’s not

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that Galloway did not evince searing emotions from me, he did quite ruthlessly, but rather, he did not let me wallow in self-pity by way of comfortable distance. I felt the struggles of the three Sarajevans who guide us without being blinded by forgetfulness that such things very likely happened during the nearly four-year siege. Galloway thrust me into the daily occurrences of his characters, their trepidation at stepping into any exposed area, however, I never lost the sense of place and historicity, albeit fictive but factually based, never got lost in the story in a way that was safe. The looming malaise of brutal threat and attack that pervades the novel – the constant shelling and sniper bullets and seemingly random death – involved me in another way; this is not a novel that comfortably carries you away, but rather an escort (with one hand lingering warningly on its weapon) into a fearful world, made more electric and remorseless and shattering because this happened. The characters are distant in that I cannot relate to what they experience, being in my snug little American world, and yet Galloway breaches this wall, at times like one of the ever-present shells, and leaves me standing at the precipice of the scarred fragments of a once beautiful city. For having the distance of not experiencing the savagery and chaos of war, I could not stop imagining my own city in such a state, beholden to hate and fear, struggling to retain the torn remnants of its pride and beauty and joy.

Then there is the cellist. He is real. He really performed as presented, amidst shelled remains of a market where twenty-two people died and many others were injured. Playing Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor for twenty-two days, Vedran Smailović performed on the site where the shell landed. One of the themes that Galloway explores centers on heroism and its permutations. I found one here. Smailović did not seek such an assessment out I am sure; yet it is from his performance that Galloway crafts his exploration of a city under siege and the internal lives of those who survive within its razor boundaries.

Heroism simmers in the three characters we follow. Perhaps the more dramatically and classically heroic would be Arrow and her defense of the city. Through the lens of her sniper rifle, she explores the dynamics of hatred; indeed it consumes her world, but not in the enflamed embrasure of its easy perspective of “them” and “us.” Instead, she revolts against allowing hatred to guide her trigger or her thoughts.

Contrastingly, Kenan and Dragan evoke heroism on a smaller scale, Kenan in the diligent quest to bring clean water to his family and his crotchety neighbor despite the spine-melting fear he feels every time he must venture through the ravaged streets of Sarajevo. Dragan is perhaps the most difficult to assign a heroic signifier, presenting many occasions that belie the qualification, yet his was the perspective that resonated most soundly for me. His heroism lies in putting one foot in front of the other, each step laden with the city he chooses to bring into existence.

I do not think that heroism is often a conscious or cognizant decision, nor one that must be heaven-rattling in scope, but as Galloway illustrates through the three characters whose lives are touched by the cellist’s playing – be it through the scope of the counter sniper Arrow, or the family-bound scope of Kenan, or Dragan’s scope of what kind of city he wants to live in and recreate moment by moment – the effects of unintentional heroism on a personal level can reverberate through a community, war torn or in peace, like the throaty vibrations of a cello’s strings.

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This book examines the minutiae of the lives of three people during the siege of Sarajevo. The characters' reflections on their lives before the war come as a jarring reminder that none of us is immune from war, that it can erupt in countries that are apparently stable and that when it does so it

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decimates the lives of ordinary people. Many of the descriptions of daily life and the choices that must be made are powerful and poignant, and the writing is reflective and atmospheric.

Nevertheless, I didn't feel gripped by this book. While I was quite intrigued to see what would happen to the characters, I didn't feel caught up in their fate. I found it quite hard to distinguish between Dragan and Kenan, and had to keep consciously reminding myself whose story I was reading; few of the characters seemed to have distinct personalities, and seemed at times little more than canvases on which the author paints his reflections on the civil war. The blood and dirt of war is in the book, but it still often feels remote, like war watched on a 24 hour news channel rather than from the inside.

I couldn't help thinking that the message might have been better conveyed if the main part of the story had stretched over a longer period of time - even just three or four days - and a little bit of the oft-repeated detail of crossing roads under sniper fire omitted in favour of the other threats that were faced. That the struggles, threats and deprivations were sustained is stated, but not really conveyed. We see the struggle to get water, but not the effects of the lack of it. Neither do we get much sense of the 'enemy' or the black market other than as a vague malevolent presence.

On the whole, I thought that this book was reasonably good, but did not live up to the rave reviews I've read.

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This book is both powerful and complex, but also deceptively simple. When I was about half-way through, I was thinking that it wasn't nearly as strong as I'd expected considering all the reviews and conversations I'd seen on LT--in general, I felt I'd expected more. Yet, at some point, what was

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just a carefully drawn story became more powerful and more lasting, without my even realizing it until I was nearly finished. In this way, I'm still not entirely sure how to talk about the book, and may have to come back to this review later.

When it comes down to it, this book will stay with me, and may be something I end up teaching. It is beautifully and carefully woven together into a powerful story that draws you in slowly but surely, and won't release until you've finished. The characters are as real as one could wish for, and the entire thing is entirely too believable, and heartbreaking in its beauty. I would have liked a little bit more material from the cellist's point of view, which is really my only criticism, but I can understand why the author focused more on the other three characters. The end result is well worth the read, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it on to nearly any reader, high school age or above.

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It took me much too long to review this book, but not because I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not. I knew as soon as I started reading this compelling and unusually constructed narrative of the effects of the 1997 siege of Sarajevo on a quartet of the city's citizens that it was one of the

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finest books I've read in a long time.

No, the delay was because as soon as I finished it, I started loaning it out to people who I was pretty sure would love it, too. One of them, Amir, lived in Sarajevo when the siege began. He managed to escape through the tunnel mentioned in the book, and later married a good friend of mine and came to the U.S. I was happy that Amir gave the book a thumbs-up, and even happier that the book led to an absorbing discussion with him and his wife that gave me new insights into both that time and the current situation in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

But enough about that. The narrative of "The Cellist of Sarajevo" is unusually constructed. There are four main characters, and the chapters alternate between their viewpoints. One of the characters is the titular cellist, who reacts to a bombing that killed 22 people waiting in a bread line by vowing to play on the bombing site every day for 22 days. Another character is "Arrow," a female sniper who is assigned to protect the cellist from assassination during his daily concerts. Kenan must make a dangerous trek across the city to fetch fresh water for his family, a journey that involves crossing intersections that are targeted by enemy snipers in the hills surrounding Sarajevo. Dragan is making a similar journey, trying to reach his workplace where he knows he can get a free meal — a precious commodity in a city where privation is the norm and no one has enough.

The four characters never meet each other, but they encounter other neighbors, friends, and strangers during the course of their quests. These encounters bring into sharp focus what it means to retain your essential humanity in the most inhumane of conditions, and whether it is possible to live through a war without losing the eseential essence of civilization.

"The Cellist of Sarajevo" is beautifully, lyrically written. I found myself compelled to read passages to myself, for the joy of hearing the language spoken aloud. Reading aloud also helped to slow my reading, and prolonged the pure pleasure of the experience of living with these four brave, fascinating individuals.

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“Men on the Hills” sounds like such a simple harmless phrase, but taken in the context of this mesmerizing novel, it’s meaning morphs into one of horror, dread, hopelessness and death. This is war ravaged Sarajevo. It is the mid-90s and this once beautiful city is under constant siege. The

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story follows several characters as they struggle to survive, in these harrowing conditions. One man tries to collect water for his family and this seemly mundane task, becomes an incredibly dangerous mission. Another is a young woman, who is chosen as a sniper, to assist the “defenders” in battling the “men on the hills”. Here is a passage, featuring the title character:
“He was the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra. That was what he knew how to be. He made the idea of music an actuality. When he stepped on onstage in his tuxedo he was transformed into an instrument of deliverance. He gave to the people who came to listen what he loved most in the world. He was as solid as the vice of his father’s hand.”
This is a must read! Highly recommended!

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During the Bosnian War, between 1992 and 1995, Serbian forces besieged the city of Sarajevo, killing thousands and wounding many more. During this siege, a cellist looks out of his window and sees a mortar fall onto a square outside his apartment building, killing 22 people standing in line to buy

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bread. For 22 days after the tragedy, and without a care for his own safety, he brings a stool and his cello,and plays a haunting adagio at the site of the massacre.

A man, Dragan, who sent his wife and son out of the country before the siege, seeks to isolate himself from everyone, thinking it will be his protection. He detaches himself from the deaths he sees almost daily until he meets a friend of his wife's on the street, and sees her shot as she tries to cross an intersection that is targeted by snipers.

Kenan, takes risks every time he treks to a brewery on the other side of the city, to fill his plastic containers with water for his family, and that of a crochety old neighbor.

A young woman, going by the name of Arrow, a former university student and ace target shooter, becomes a sniper, to kill those who seek to kill Sarajevans and who have taught her how to hate. But her skills bring her to the attention of those who would seek to turn her into a killing machine. What she chooses makes for an extremely poignant ending to this excellent book.

The cellist's music provides the backdrop in this haunting story of 4 people trying to survive a senseless war, trying not to lose hope, dignity and their own humanity.

Part of this book was inspired by Vedran Smailovic, a cellist who did indeed play for 22 days at the site where 22 people had been killed in Sarajevo.

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What a sad, hopeful, horrific, and beautiful book. Yes, I know there seem to be a lot of contradictions in that sentence, but that is exactly how Galloway presents the experience of living (or maybe just surviving) in a once-great city under siege. The frame of the novel is based on a real story of

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a cellist who plays Albinoni's Adagio on the site where twenty-two people waiting in line for bread were killed by a mortar attack. He has vowed to play every day for twenty-two days in their honor. He never explains his reason for putting himself in the line of sniper fire, nor do the people who stand listening to him. (In fact, he is more of a peripheral character.) But it's clear that they are trying to hold on to some last scraps of decency and civilization in a city where they have to walk for miles just to get water, risking being shot by snipers at every intersection, and where dead bodies lying in the street are such a common sight that everyone just steps over them. The book made me think about the little things that we take for granted every day, and of the fragility of life and the pointlessness of war. An absolutely stunning novel. Highly recommended.

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A quick read and an interesting look into the the everyday lives of several people during the siege of Sarajevo. Several different but non - intersecting characters go about their tense days as Sarajevo is hit by snipers and mortar bombs. Kenan, a husband and father steels himself for hisevery 4

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day trek for water for his wife, three children and his elderly landlady. He dreads every step, fearing the worst, Dragan still has work at a bread factory and likewise has to walk the streets of Sarajevo for both work and food. Along with the their fellow citizens of Sarajevo, they go tensely about their activities, wondering when they will be the next person to be killed in the streets. Meanwhile a renowned cellist chooses to play in the streets for twenty- two days, to honour twenty -two people who were killed while waiting in line for bread. As the blind cellist plays in the street, a young female sniper is tasked with guarding him from an enemy sniper.

A story in which we see the resilience and inherent good of people overcome fear in a time of war.

4 stars and recommended.

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From April 5th 1992 to February 29th 1996 the city of Sarajevo was surrounded by the Yugoslav People's Army and bombarded daily by sniper fire, mortar shelling and deaths in the thousands. The Cellist of Sarajevo chronicles the life of four people who are living through the longest siege of a

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capital city in modern warfare. They go from living regular lives filled with the daily worries and triumphs of normal human existence to fighting for their lives on an almost daily basis. The unnamed cellist had watched as a mortar fell and killed twenty two of his neighbors as they queued up to buy bread. Before the war he had been an accomplished cellist and in a move that is part bravery and part insanity, he chooses to mourn and honor his fallen neighbors by going out daily at 4pm to play Albinoni's adagio in G minor. Albinoni's adagio is a composition that was/is attributed to Tomaso Albinoni and said to have been found in the ruins of a library in Dresden after the city had been firebombed by the allies in WW II.

With the cellist's vow to play everyday for twenty two days, the army defending the city receives intelligence that the invading army plans to have him killed by a sniper. They dispatch their own sniper nicknamed Arrow to spot and kill any would be assassins of the cellist. But Arrow is not a mindless drone who follows orders without a conscience. She questions her superiors and eventually finds herself forced to make decisions as to how far she is willing to go in support of "her side".

Kenan and Dragan are the other two characters highlighted in the book. They both find themselves making road journeys and choices as to how to continue to survive the war. One heads out to find water for his family and his ungrateful neighbor and the other struggles to get to his job as a baker. With each journey, both face deadly intersections that are constantly being targeted by snipers on the hills.

This book is by no means a comprehensive study of the actual siege of Sarajevo. There are many who will complain that it leaves out key incidents of the siege but I do not believe that Galloway ever intended to cover every scintilla of the war. As dark and sad as this tale may be, it offers hope as its final message. At the end of the day it is the humanity of the characters that makes you believe that though the horrors may continue, they have all chosen to live on in whatever way that they can. They will sprint across the street as their heart beats furiously and when they get to the other side without being shot, they will experience a feeling of elation that they have lived to see another day.

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This is how your review will appear:


Very moving.

An eye-opener of a book. This short, moving novel is written in staccato style, reminiscent of gun fire or the sudden dashes to safety that it describes. The day to day struggle to survive is lucidly depicted as we follow Dragan and Kennan crossing

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the city on vital errands and Arrow, a marksman as she returns the fire from the hills.
The Cellist provides a few minutes of beautiful music each day in commemoration of 22 neighbours who were killed queueing for bread. This character was based on the cellist Vedran Smailovic who lived in Sarajevo at the time and played to honour the lives of the dead.
Arrow is given the task of protecting him from death as he plays his daily memorial.

I am really glad I read this book. I'd been aware of the seige at the time but had no idea that it had gone on for so long. No history is included in the main body of the text, making it a universal description that could apply to many populations under similar threat.
If you enjoyed this then I'd recommend Pretty Birds by Scott Simon. Also based in Sarajevo during the time of the seige, this is a more flowing read with additional detail on the day to day fight to survive.

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I have mixed feelings about this book. There's a poetry in its prose that I really like. But at the end of the day the book seems to go in circles. The same questions being asked. The same thoughts. Same fears. Same reasons for living. There's something very McEwan-like that paints a vivid picture

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of what it was like living in Sarajevo under siege, a tiny part of it perhaps.

To me the value of the book lies in its thought-provoking-ness and not necessarily its construction nor its writing. I think Galloway's a tremendous writer and I love his wording style. But when I read his Afterwords and learned that he got many accomplished and established people to read and comment on his novel, I couldn't help to wonder if they all thought that the fact that everyone seems to go in circles, both physically and mentally, was indeed an asset of the book. I thought it was somewhat of a liability, but maybe that's just me. Especially because I finished the book quickly and didn't need the constant reminder, I found a lot of lines repetitive.

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A Story About Humanity

I read "The Cellist of Sarajevo" in one sitting and I have to say that it was the most emotionally invested I've been in recent memory over a novel. Set during the siege of Sarajevo during the early 90s, the fictional story of three main characters and a lone cellist will make

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you think more about what it means to be human, what humans are capable of at their worst and at their best.

Throughout the novel, Galloway drops a few philosophical hints here and there. Issues of moral ambiguity, existentialism, and human nature are peppered throughout the stories. Definitely a novel that can be dissected for its more deeper meanings.

As for the writing, I found Galloway to be superb in the way he described some of the more terrible scenes of carnage. Also, the struggle for survival and the motives behind each character are very well developed. As mentioned, there is a deep emotional attachment as a reader towards the characters in the novel.

Overall I can find no fault at all with "The Cellist of Sarajevo." I would not be surprised to see this book turned into a movie someday, just a wonderful story of what it means to be a human being.

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"To go outside is to accept the possibility you will be killed"
By sally tarbox on 22 December 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
When a missile kills twenty-two people queuing up for bread in a Sarajevo market-place, a nameless cellist, watching from a window, vows to play on the site for twenty-two days in

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memory.
But the story doesn't really concern him: in short chapters, we follow three Bosnian residents as they go about their daily lives - fearful Kenan as he makes the regular nightmare journey for water, always facing the possibility of being picked off by a sniper; elderly baker Dragan; and young counter-sniper Arrow, who is becoming increasingly aware that her hatred for the gunmen in the hills is becoming based around who they are rather than just what they do.

Written in the present continuous, this is quite an immediate novel, which immerses the reader in the sense of living in a besieged city. And yet,despite its literary merits, I found the minute details a little tedious, the characters failed to engage me despite my sympathy with their plight.

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Brilliantly crafted novel focused on three Sarajevans and how their lives and their city were affected by the Siege. The Cellist (a fictional portrayal of the real life Cellist) binds these three characters together. Each of the characters are forced to decide how they want their lives to change or

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remain the same, both from the perspective of how they act towards others and how they treat their inner selves. Written in a simple style on the surface; there is definitely a depth that makes this book a worthy read.

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This was not a history of the Siege of Sarajevo, and I realise that, but it's darn close. What Galloway did with the material he had gleaned was amazing, to say the least. The emotions were just as raw, the experiences just as real, as it would have been there and then. It was heart wrenching on

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the parts of everyone portrayed in the story - even Arrow, who has an historical basis for her character.

I felt the cellist touch his instrument. I felt the pain of losing the people in that mortar attack. I felt the real need to, no matter the threat to life, do what he did for nearly a month.

There was so much in there, and Mr. Galloway led the reader, without a direct explanation, to understand a little of the mentality and strategy of both sides.

"Powerful" is an understatement.

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Four residents of Sarajevo during the siege of 1992-1996 respond to the changes in their lives, the deaths of those around them, and the almost constant bombardment of the city. Inspired by a real event, Galloway tells of a cellist who witnesses 22 of his neighbors killed by a mortar as they line

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up to buy bread. For 22 days after, he sits in the street where the attack took place and plays in full view of the snipers on the hills around him. The other three main characters include a young woman sniper who is charged with protecting him, a young father running a deadly gauntlet to cross town and fill water bottles for his family, and an elderly man who risks his life each day to go to the bakery where he works and get bread. Each of the three crosses paths with the cellist, whose music helps them make decisions about how they will live their lives in this new reality, where all they have known is being destroyed around them. Compelling, memorable, and beautifully written.

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"The Cellist of Sarajevo", based in part on a true story, weaves together the stories of four individuals coping through the Sarajevo war. At its heart, this is a story about survival: what are people are willing to do in order to survive? Why do they want to survive? And, what happens when people

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no longer have the drive to carry on?

Evocative of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", "The Cellist of Sarajevo" shows what happens when life is reduced to the basics -- finding food, water, and shelter; evading death. Galloway skillfully opens up broad questions from the grim surroundings, and shows how something as simple as music can awaken the humanity that is obscured by horror.

Well written without being overwritten, "The Cellist of Sarajevo" is a compelling read. It provides an insightful view into a war that was all but overlooked by the rest of the world, while deftly showing the similarity of tools from war to war.

A taut story that manages to ask big questions in few pages, "The Cellist of Sarajevo" reminds us that humanity is both the result of and the driver for survival.

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For 22 days in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo, local cellist Vedran Smailović played in the spot where a mortar killed 22 people who were standing in line for bread. At any time while he played, he could have been shot by a sniper, but he survived each day, committing a small but significant

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act of resistance that became the inspiration for Steven Galloway’s new book, The Cellist of Sarajevo.

In this book, Galloway depicted the the lives of three (fictional) Sarajevo residents: Arrow, a sniper with deadly accuracy, sent to protect The Cellist; Kenan, a married father of three who risked his life every five days to get water for his family and neighbor; and Dragan, a man whose wife and son evacuated to Italy, which left him alone and unconnected to his fellow humans.

The Cellist was a minor character in the book, but his 22 days of music were what bound these characters’ stories. For the characters, The Cellist inspired each one to defy the atrocities around them, by doing human tasks, such as removing a body from the street or getting water for a cranky neighbor. By committing these acts, each character proved that while the war raged on, they were committed to being human. To survive the siege, the characters not only had to dodge snipers, but keep the spirit of Sarajevo alive within them.

Undoubtedly, Galloway swept the reader into the besieged Sarajevo so that you heard the gunfire and The Cellist’s music; you saw the shelled buildings and the haggard looks on people’s faces; you felt the citizens’ desperation as they looked for food or firewood. Galloway’s ability to transport readers to this place in modern history made The Cellist of Sarajevo so impactful and unforgettable.

Thankfully, Sarajevo is making a comeback, but it’s important that books like this one are being published so people can learn more about what this city and its citizens endured – and ultimately how their small acts of defiance during the siege laid the groundwork for Sarajevo’s restoration now.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about how people can rise above the ugliness of the world around us.

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