Book review: The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway

I first read The Cellist of Sarajevo 14 years ago and it had a profound impact on me. Now that I’m finally about to visit Sarajevo I decided to reread it and was pleased to find it was just as good the second time around.

Steven Galloway’s book is a work of fiction but was inspired by a real event that took place in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo. One afternoon in May that year several mortar shells struck people waiting to buy bread and 22 of them lost their lives. For the next 22 days, a renowned local cellist Vedran Miskina played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor at the bomb site to honour the dead.

While the cellist character in The Cellist of Sarajevo is not based on this real person, the brave action he took is at the heart of the book. Brave because playing his cello outside every day made him a direct target for the snipers who terrorised the city’s inhabitants for almost four years.

It was this and other stark facts revealed in The Cellist of Sarajevo that had such a profound impact on me. The siege took place from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 and while I had a hazy memory of it, I had no real idea what it was like for the people who lived there.

I didn’t know Sarajevo’s residents played a daily and potentially deadly game of Russian Roulette with snipers just to get across road junctions and get water. That queuing to get bread could prove fatal. Or that some people profited hugely from the siege by bringing in black market goods to sell to malnourished people who looked and felt years older than they were.

Over the 30-odd years since the siege, the way we receive news has changed dramatically. The advent of digital communications and the ability of ordinary people to film and share what’s happening means more information is now available. In the early 1990s it was just the TV news and newspapers but even so, I felt embarrassed that I’d somehow missed this.

The Cellist of Sarajevo fills that gap, albeit with the imagined lives of the cellist and three other central characters. Arrow is a talented female sniper, recruited from her university shooting team by the forces trying to defend Sarajevo from the Serbian invaders. Kenan is a family man who considers himself a coward because he dreads the walk to get water for his family. Dragan feels the loss of his family who have escaped Sarajevo and tries to avoid old friends as he navigates the streets and bridges to get a free meal at the bakery where he works.

Every day these people carry on despite witnessing the horror of seeing people die in front of them and wondering if and when they will be next. The Cellist of Sarajevo just covers a snapshot of what life must have been like in the siege but it also paints a picture of resilience and hope. As the days pass and the cellist continues to defy his potential fate and play his instrument, more and more people gather to listen.

The Cellist of Sarajevo isn’t a book that generated tears, but it moved me enormously and stayed with me for a very long time. Hence 14 years later I’m about to visit the city and I’m happy I took the time to reread this excellent book.

I suspect I bought a new copy of the book when I first read it, but now I try to read sustainably where possible. So I’d recommend checking your local library or Oxfam shop for a copy. I’m a book volunteer at my local Oxfam and we get some excellent books in. Books are also sold from the online Oxfam shop.

 

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