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Scherben (2013)

by Ismet Prcic(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Suhrkamp

review 1: It is a gripping story of a young man growing up in Bosnia before and during the war and what he felt after he emigrated to California. It can be disjointed and long and sometimes his word choice seems sloppy, but given the fact that this is written in English, and it is his second language and I felt that the rambling disjointed nature of the vignettes in his account were truly "shards" of memory (it's a perfect title) and that the confusion and conflict the reader feels is on purpose to convey just a little bit of what he is going through.
review 2: War torn, beautiful, funny, brutal and aptly titled... are a few things that come to mind after reading this book. Part memoir, part novel - it really is the written definition of shards. One doesn't think of br... moreutal war images intermingled with coming of age tales as funny but when you're a chubby kid with a love for theater in Bosnia during the war, this is what you get. That's not an easy task to accomplish. Working with minimum electricity, viewing of heads stuck on stakes along with countless atrocities on a daily basis, and trying to eek out an artistic love as a kid is tough anywhere you come from but when reading this you're infused with hope, at least at first. We also experience the idea of emigrating, the vision of California and the land of milk and honey. Only to arrive and what happens when you get there.Wherever you go, there you are.Props for the invention of the drink, The Bosnian Travesty, Popav vodka and Gatorade.Not really a happy read but more of a tragedy with light. less

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