Sarajevo, 1992, is a city under siege. The men on the surrounding hills rain shells
and mortars down. Less indiscriminately,
and so more cruelly, they also pick off soldiers and civilians alike with
deadly sniper fire. When a shell hits
the market place killing twenty-two people queuing for bread, a cellist who
witnessed the strike from his window takes the extraordinary decision to commemorate
the lost lives by playing a haunting piece of music at the site for twenty-two
consecutive days.
That much is true, and around the event the
author relates slices of three fictional lives in the city. Arrow is a young female sniper recruited from
the university shooting team and given the brief to retaliate, shooting the
snipers and other military on the hills.
Kenan takes his twice weekly trek across town to the brewery springs to collect
life-sustaining water for his family.
For Dragan, who got his family out early in the conflict, it is the
daily journey to work at the bakery (a job that exempts him from conscription)
that takes him onto the streets.
Life under siege and under fire in what was
a modern civilised city of half a million people is a real eye-opener. The effect on the urban infrastructure and
the lives of those still trapped is vividly portrayed. As well as the physical dangers and fears
there are psychological effects to contend with. The likes of Arrow, Kenan and Dragan have to
question why they continue to resist the enemy without in order to save a city
that is rapidly losing its soul to the paramilitary chiefs and profiteering
gangsters that thrive within.
They may come up with different answers but
each, like many others, draws strength from the music of the cellist of
Sarajevo.
A tense, gripping and surprisingly positive
paean to the fortitude of the human spirit under dire circumstances.
