|
Showing 1 - 3 of
3 matches in All Departments
The horrors of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the very
heart of Europe in 1992, may be all but forgotten - but not by
everyone. In this book, Jasna Levinger-Goy offers a vivid, personal
story of a family of Jewish origin who identified as Yugoslavs. It
traces their journey over a period of ten years, starting with
their life in Sarajevo under siege and ending in the United
Kingdom. Without belonging to any of the warring factions, this is
Levinger-Goy's true story, a story that takes place on the front
lines in the heart of Sarajevo. The book offers a percipient view
of the civil war through the eyes of those who witnessed it. We are
presented here with the motives, reactions and behaviour of people
caught in the crossfire of political and military events outside
their control. It illustrates coping with dangers and the
resourcefulness needed during the siege and during the perilous
journey out. It also shows that almost the equal amount of coping
mechanism and resourcefulness was required in adapting to new
circumstances as well as in building a new life. Levinger-Goy's
venture into the unknown is tangled with the sense of loss - of
home, of a country and the loss of identity. Her experience
provides an insightful commentary on how these intersect, overlap
and ultimately affect an individual. It sheds light on human
suffering and resilience, frailty and ingenuity, cruelty and
empathy. It describes unique personal circumstances, but
illustrates universal behaviours. Although the book inevitably
deals with fear, pain, desperation, loss, and even hatred, it also
reveals much about love, hope and happiness and above all about the
prevalence of good even in the most difficult of circumstances. Set
against the backdrop of a brutal conflict, this book reminds us of
the very human cost of war.
|
The Banquet in Blitva (Paperback)
Jasna Levinger-Goy; Miroslav Krleza; Translated by E.D. Goy
bundle available
|
R895
R811
Discovery Miles 8 110
Save R84 (9%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Krleza's epic condemnation of hypocrisy and totalitarianism in pre
- World War II Europe; Miroslav Krleza is considered one of the
most important Central European authors of the twentieth century.
In his career as a poet, playwright, screenwriter, novelist,
essayist, journalist, and travel writer he wrote over fifty books.
He also suffered condemnation - as a leftist and a practitioner of
modernism - and saw his books proscribed in the late 1930s. The
first two books of the trilogy The Banquet in Blitva were written
in the thirties to comment on political, psychological, artistic,
and ethical issues. Such commentary had already earned him the
enmity of Yugoslavia's increasingly fascistic government. He wrote
and published the third book, together with the previous two, in
1962. Colonel Kristian Barutanski, lord of the mythical Baltic
nation of Blitva, has freed his country from foreign oppression and
now governs with an iron fist. He is opposed by Niels Nielsen, a
melancholy intellectual who hurls invective at the dictator and at
the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of society. Barutanski himself
despises the sycophants beneath him and recognizes in Nielsen a
genuine foe; yet Nielsen, haunted by his own lapses of conscience,
struggles to escape both the regime and the role of opposition
leader that is thrust upon him. In the end he flees to the
neighboring state of Blatvia - and finds his new country as corrupt
and as oppressive as the one he previously called home.
|
Fortress (Paperback)
Mesa Selimovic; Translated by Edward Dennis Goy, Jasna Levinger-Goy
bundle available
|
R764
R702
Discovery Miles 7 020
Save R62 (8%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
"The Fortress "is one of the most significant and fascinating
novels to come out of the former Yugoslavia. Ahmet Shabo returns
home to eighteenth-century Sarajevo from the war in Russia, numbed
by the death in battle or suicide of nearly his entire military
unit. In time he overcomes the anguish of war, only to find that he
has emerged a reflective and contemplative man in a society that
does not value, and will not tolerate, the subversive implications
of these qualities.
|
|