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Death and the Dervish

by Meša Selimović, Bogdan Rakić (Translator), Stephen M. Dickey (Translation)

4.54 of 5 stars 4.54 · rating details · 1,693 ratings · 50 reviews

Death and the Dervish is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of Sheikh Nuruddin, a dervish at a Sarajevo monastery in the eighteenth century during the Turkish occupation. The spiritual leader of a group of Moslems, Sheikh Nuruddin has deliberately removed himself from the day-to-day activities of society. This distance is shattered, though, by the arrest...more

Paperback, 473 pages

Published August 14th 1996 by Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL) (first published 1966)

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Dec 14, 2012 [P] rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bitchin

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me tell you a brief story. A while ago I was [sort of] dating a girl, a very nice girl. Although we had ‘done the business,’ so to speak, we were struggling to find the [quality] time to spend together as she was DJing most nights. One such night she invited me to watch her work, with the idea being that we would meet up after her set. Of course, I wanted to see her so I agreed, despite her working hours running from around 10:30 in the evening to 2:00 or 3:...more Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me tell you a brief story. A while ago I was [sort of] dating a girl, a very nice girl. Although we had ‘done the business,’ so to speak, we were struggling to find the [quality] time to spend together as she was DJing most nights. One such night she invited me to watch her work, with the idea being that we would meet up after her set. Of course, I wanted to see her so I agreed, despite her working hours running from around 10:30 in the evening to 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

With this in mind I approached my brother and asked him if he’d like to ‘go out’ for the night to a club. I explained that at the end of the night I would be meeting up with my girl, that he’d be doing me a huge favour by keeping me company, and that, besides, prior to the club closing I was free to enjoy myself with him as on any other night out. As I didn’t want him to think I was using him I even offered to buy all his drinks, as a sweetener to the deal.

He accepted these terms, so we got ready and exited our current premises and headed towards one of our favourite bars. I ordered, and paid for, the drinks, which once ready I carried over to our table. At the table my brother was immersed in his mobile phone. ‘I need a fag,’ he said. ‘Ok, I’ll come too,’ I replied. I don’t know what it is like in your country, but here in the UK you cannot smoke inside pubs and bars, so we left the building and lit our cigarettes.

It was at this point that my brother started to groan, most feebly. ‘I feel really sick,’ he said. ‘Oh, really?’ I replied. My brother clutched his stomach dramatically. ‘No, I do, I feel really really sick.’ ‘Uh huh. It wouldn’t be that you’ve had a text message from someone else and have decided to meet up with them instead, would it?’ ‘No, I promise, I’m not lying. I feel so ill. I need to go home.’ ‘Uh huh.’ There was little point arguing, so I let him go. What he didn’t realise is that I am a peculiar sort of man, who cannot accept being lied to, so I waited long enough to allow him to get home and then set off back there myself. And, what do you know, I step through the door, calling out his name, and yet the place is deserted. Quelle surprise.

So, I learnt a valuable lesson from this incident: one cannot trust one’s brother. One cannot look to him for aid or assistance. Death and The Dervish adds weight to this claim. The brother of the titular dervish has been arrested and imprisoned. The dervish, Nuruddin, is in a position to, at least, try to help, to work to secure his release, but drags his feet and, ultimately, does very little. His brother is executed, of course.

The meat of the text is made up of Nuruddin’s psychological anguish; anguish over his brother, and anguish over the fate of a criminal who seeks refuge in his garden. Despite strengthening my belief that brothers are selfish, borderline useless, cretins, Death and The Dervish is a beautiful, astonishing novel. It is an intense, existential, rumination on moral quandaries, death [of course], hopelessness in the face of a tyrannical political system, and guilt.

The prose is dense and satisfying; the story captivating and emotionally charged; and although it is mostly believable, or realistic, there are elements of the surreal, the absurd. One is put in mind of Kafka, Dostoevsky, even Proust in its delicate finely-crafted sentences, and it is the equal of anything produced by these masters [maybe not Marcel, nothing touches Marcel]. Death and The Dervish is an otherwordly novel, as all the very best novels are; it is transporting, it is transcendent; just don’t read it if you’re miffed with your bro.(less)

9 likes · like · see review

Nov 28, 2011 Ivana S. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, 2011, great-books, from-my-list, fiction

There's only one word I can use for this book - MASTERPIECE!!!

8 likes · like · see review

May 12, 2013 Goran Markov rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A book about self analysis. A book about sacrifice. A book about life, religion, feelings and the impact of the society on a religious figure not really able to adapt and become what was expected of him...just another slave to his consciousness.

This story is a powerful psychological drama, filled with philosophical view of the world.

Ahmed Nurudin, a derviš (poor muslim ascet), must find a way to cope with the world that's surrounding him...he must try to explain to himself the arrest of his br...more

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Dec 02, 2011 Iluzija O. Istini rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Svjesna sam da ce ovaj osvrt biti u potpunoj opreci ocjeni ★★★★★ koja je navedena poviše, ali samo vrhunska knjiga može potresti osjecaje toliko da je zavolis ili zamrzis.

Citajuci pocetak i primjecujuci gotovo ludjacku opsjednutost grijehom koja je izvirala iz glevnog lika, sjetila sam se svih ljudi koji su mi knjigu preporucili ili pohvalili. Tko je tu lud? Pisac, oni ili ja? Toliko je realno lik docaran.

Realan ili ne, prezirem ga svakom strunom svog, nadam se, zdravog razuma. Optereceno, nezah...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Lars K Jensen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

Imagine a bag of candy with 455 pieces of the most delicious pieces of candy inside. Each is so delicate and mouth-watering that you feel the need to expand the joy to as many minutes as possible, and it sweetens the soul, just like it does the tongue.

This is basically what this book was like to me. It's not an easy read (and thank God for that), but it's great literature. Such great literature.

The book (written 1962-66 and a classic in Yugoslav literature) is set in Sarajevo under Ottoman rule...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Zeljka rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-treasury, historical-fiction, philosophy, religious-literature, adapted-to-screen

Meša Selimović je bio genije. Dostojevski naših krajeva, definitivno. Kako je uspio tako uvjerljivo dočarati čovjeka toliko nabijenog emocijama, strahovima i obzirima, i usput nam otkrivati tako divne, tužne i istinite misli o životu! Uživala sam u svakoj toj misli...
Bilo je teško gledati sa strane kako se taj derviš uništava, kako sve one iluzije koje je imao o životu i ljudima propadaju u vodu i on sam postaje ono što je prezirao. Bilo je tako tužno to promatrati i znati da ne možeš ništa učin...more

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May 02, 2012 Rebecca Duncan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a huge favorite of mine and I'm quite surprised that I haven't written about it - yet.

But I'm here now to correct that and to pay homage to this unprecedented masterpiece of, I dare to say, world literature.
When I first came across this book, I was frankly very, very, unimaginably young and even more so immature. But, even at that period in my life, I din't fail to recognize that this novel is like a rare diamond that not many people are allowed to discover,understand and accept.

Not...more This book is a huge favorite of mine and I'm quite surprised that I haven't written about it - yet.

But I'm here now to correct that and to pay homage to this unprecedented masterpiece of, I dare to say, world literature.
When I first came across this book, I was frankly very, very, unimaginably young and even more so immature. But, even at that period in my life, I din't fail to recognize that this novel is like a rare diamond that not many people are allowed to discover,understand and accept.

Not knowing where to start,and afraid I maybe won't transfer what lies in the depths of the wisdom that this book brings and gives, I would like to say what the novel is about in a couple of unpretentious sentences.

Basically, it is a quest for Justice, but the quest is doomed to fail at its very beginning. The quest is taken by a man who is not your ordinary man, but a person who lives under very strict rules of moral and divine providence, and he can never escape from what he is.
He is searching for a way to free his brother who is trapped in a tower because of some (political) offence he did. Little does the hero know that the verdict has been reached in advance, and that there is no way out not only for his lost brother, but, even more so, for him.

The novel is written in the "I - form", and the author is very skilled in connecting, contrasting, explaining and hiding his feelings through his writing, and the reader doesn't fail to utterly connect with the authors dilemmas and his enormous sadness and pain. The book speaks not only of Justice, or the nonexistence of the latter, but also of Life and Love and People and Man, and Truth and Lie, and it goes on ad infinitum.

It always seemed to me that the author writes his thoughts and makes them into sentences with such ease and fluency, and I read this text with awe even today, nearly ten years after reading it for the first time as a very silly girl. To this day, when I'm feeling perplexed about life and my existence and all those, to quote the Pythons, "meaning of life" questions, I just read a couple of sentences from here, and I immediately feel my confusion fading.
I'm grateful for that, and i think that this is definitely a must - read novel!

Start today :)
(less)

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Feb 26, 2011 Mother rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Roman nije loš. Govori o dervišu Ahmedu Nurudinu, njegovom poimanju stvarnosti i ljudi. Mislim da je derviš opisan dobro, jedino se MENI ne dopada takav lik:
U njemu je previše mržnje, nezadovoljstva. Njegove socijalne reakcije počinju tek nakon registrovanja lošeg mišljenja okoline o sebi. Kada shvati da ljudi iz kasabe očekuju neku reakciju, on počinje da dela. Najbitnije je da to nije pozitivno delanje, delanje dostojno čoveka i dostojno derviša ( osobe koja se pridržava Kur-ana). On namiruje...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Jonathan yates rated it 5 of 5 stars

The reason to read this book is pretty clear, first its beautiful, its a slow meditative beautiful story of a fictional past which for me is also a world far away, each page is slow and the details are full of color and light, sighing and the distant sounds of brooks
but secondly because like in all great literature there is something to learn here, this book is a wonderful study of the relation between the individual and the authority of governance-we all have relations to authority in our lives...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Sandra15 rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book long time ago. Regarding Meša Selimović as an author, there can only be one conclusion - almost every sentence of his novels could be copied, memorized and quoted somewhere. His genius cannot be completely translated into foreign languages. The true heart of his recountals and descriptions is hidden in and interwoven with delicate fibres of his native language, Serbo - Croatian.

1 like · like · see review

May 15, 2012 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Set in 18th century Bosnia, this book is told from the point of view of a dervish whose brother has been arrested. He is trying to determine what to do about his brother's arrest, and then the brother dies. The book is mostly a series of reflections by the main character on his life and its struggles and absurdities, but it is so beautifully written that it is a fantastic read.

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Sep 14, 2012 Olla Dilas rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favorite classics of 20th century Balkan literature. It is a story within a story, a tale placed in historical Ottoman times filled with subtext references of 20th century Communist regime oppression in Ex Yugoslavia. Definitely worth reading. This translation is excellent!

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Mar 21, 2013 M. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Njegova najbolja knjiga definitivno. Na fantastican nacin prikazuje promenu coveka, od potpune vere do pobune, zbog nepravde nanete njemu bliskoj osobi.
'Kazem bol, a ne osjecam ga.
Kazem namirivanje, a ne ostvarujem ga.
Ljudi su mi postali teski duznici, a nista od njih ne trazim.'

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Mar 18, 2013 Weltschmerz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: juznoslovenska-knjizevnost, favorites

Proza, a poezija. Hrana za dušu. Čista umetnost. Nije za svakoga, ali ni ne može da bude, a to ne kažem zato što sam intelektualni snob, već zato što da li će vam se ova knjiga svideti zavisi gotovo isključivo od vašeg senzibiliteta.

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Mar 29, 2013 Rikki Chadwig rated it 3 of 5 stars

Knjiga inspirisana istinitim dogadjajem...Kompozicija i forma knjige su u redu,ali kad jednom napravis pauzu u citanju,ne nastavlja ti se vise...:)

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Jul 09, 2009 Violet rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read this in the original language..one of the best books I've ever read. It's very philosophical and profound, left a great impression on me.

1 like · like · see review

Mar 20, 2012 Ron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Read my review at my blog.

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Nov 03, 2012 Abdullah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sadece adaletin degil,dostlugun da sorgulandigi bir kitap.Ilk 200 sayfada olay yavas ilerliyor,ama guzel tahliller var.

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Apr 12, 2013 Natasa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Сторија о трагању за изгубљеним Собом - сјајан роман, вредан читања... непресушно извориште тумачења...

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Feb 11, 2013 Merima Smajic rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

can not praise this book (and author) too much.
wish there was a translation in english.

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May 13, 2013 Branimira rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing. I confess, I was bored at first, and I was bored for almost entire story, but he broke my heart with last ten pages. Just amazing!!

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Aug 10, 2012 Azra Lali rated it 5 of 5 stars

Masterpiece. If I had to chose The Book of the books - this would be my choice!

1 like · like · see review

Jun 11, 2012 Ana rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is, without a doubt, the most beautifully written book I have ever read.

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 10, 2013 Shannon Baker rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found it hard to read, but well worth the effort.

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Aug 28, 2012 Rhonda Shore rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

One of the greatest books I have ever read, truly.

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Sep 15, 2012 Christina rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the best novels ever written.

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May 11, 2012 Lounge.girl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Prati me Nurudin gde god da krenem..

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Mar 25, 2012 Ana Lukovic ひなたーちゃん rated it 2 of 5 stars

Procitala sam, a nemam pojma o cemu se radi. Mozda je prosto preozbiljna za mene, mada sam citala i dosta teze i ozbiljnije knjige. Ima dobre citate.

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Oct 22, 2012 Smirna added it · review of another edition

Knjiga života

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Dec 07, 2012 Navaey E. الف. نوایی rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

vrlo dobar

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About Meša Selimović

Mehmed "Meša" Selimović was a Yugoslav writer from Bosnia and Herzegovina and one of the greatest writers in Serbo-Croatian of the 20th century. His most famous works deal with Bosnia and Herzegovina and the culture of the Bosniak inhabitants of the Ottoman province of Bosnia.

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Quotes from Death and the Dervish

“Ljudi preziru sve one koji ne uspiju, a mrze one koji se uspnu iznad njih; Navikni se na prezir ako želis mir, ili na mržnju ako pristaneš na borbu...” — 57 people liked it

“Trebalo bi ubijati prošlost sa svakim danom što se ugasi. Izbrisati je da ne postoji, da ne boli. Lakše bi se podnosio dan što traje, ne bi se merio onim što više ne postoji. Ovako se mešaju utvare i život, pa nema ni čistog sećanja, ni čistog života.” — 37 people liked it

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