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The Cellist of Sarajevo

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 9,630 ratings · 1,658 reviews

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Standing at his window on May 27, 1992, the cellist has no idea what is about to happen. The mortar that falls in front of his apartment building kills 22 of his friends and neighbors as they wait in line for bread, and in a moment, his world is horribly diminished. In mute defiance of the danger of doing so, he carries his inst...more

Paperback, 261 pages

Published 2009 by Vintage Canada (first published January 1st 2008)

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Jan 13, 2012 Gavin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary

Few books have ever moved me to tears. Sure, I get sad every once in a while when reading a story, but hardly ever do I feel like crying after a novel. THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO made me cry. Not face trembling, snot pouring from the nose type of crying, rather, the tears that came from completion of this novel were from a deep sadness I rarely experience. But before getting to my crying episode, let me first share a few things that I found amazing with this book:

1) It was written by Steve Galloway...more Few books have ever moved me to tears. Sure, I get sad every once in a while when reading a story, but hardly ever do I feel like crying after a novel. THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO made me cry. Not face trembling, snot pouring from the nose type of crying, rather, the tears that came from completion of this novel were from a deep sadness I rarely experience. But before getting to my crying episode, let me first share a few things that I found amazing with this book:

1) It was written by Steve Galloway, a Canadian, who has no ties with the people or the city of Sarajevo
2) This story is based on the real life event of Vedran Smailovic, a cellist who played for 22 days as snipers fought each other in the buildings surrounding him
3) Even the people that do not have major roles in the novel are given a voice through the actions, inactions, emotions, and thoughts of the ones that are actively described and followed, which gives this book a Dickensian quality that I admire and appreciate because the novel is only 235 pages long
4) The simple fact that this story was told at all…history has had a funny way of forgetting this part of the world.

The story opens in a war-torn part of Sarajevo. People are mulling about, trying to live their lives as best they can in a besieged city. As they try to hustle each other for food or information or cigarettes, a whistle splits the air….a mortar has landed among them, killing 22, maiming countless others. These are civilians that have been targeted. They pose no military threat. Most of the killed are women and children.

The next day, at approximately the same time that the mortar fell, a man enters the street carrying a cello case, sets up a chair, and opens the cello case. He takes his time. Almost as if time no longer exists for him. And in a way, for the man and the people of Sarajevo, time is no longer a constricting factor on their lives. After he has opened the case, he takes out his cello and begins to tune it. Again, time plays no part here. He is not here for the rebels; he is not here for a political statement. He is here for the ones that are no longer able to be there. Slowly, like a surgeon making the first cut for open heart surgery, he draws his bow across the strings and plays. Music fills the empty air. And for a bit, anger and violence are no longer heard.

Had this been a one-time occurrence, this story would be a footnote in world history, a hushed whisper among historical enthusiasts. But the next day the cellist does the same thing; and he continues to partake in this seemingly idiotic music playing for twenty-two days. Every day is dedicated to one of the 22 that was killed by the mortar. This is all fact.

Enter Steve Galloway. This young author takes this story and does not necessarily spin it, in as much as he creates a perfect background for it. In his version of Sarajevo, he brings the reader into a world that few of us will ever experience. He builds a perfect world of rubble one dilapidated and shelled-out building at a time. Then he creates fictitious people to populate his vision. These are not military commandos performing feats of courage; these people are not villains and heroes that fight; the people within this story are ordinary people: an old woman, an exhausted man, a young woman who knows only the truth when she squeezes the trigger of her rifle, and a young man that wants to be courageous, but knows that courage is only a means to immediate death. These people are not selfish. They are not numb to what is happening in their city. They have become shells of themselves, like the destroyed buildings that once harbored commerce or residential life.

The story follows these people through an average day of what they could be expected to experience. For some, the day involves getting water from a well. For others, the action of the day follows them to the market, where they hope to get any type of bread, fresh or otherwise. Some of these characters have to run a gauntlet of enemy soldiers firing upon them. Some of them have to make hard decisions of helping thy neighbor, or helping only thyself.

The other main character is the female sniper that is pulled from her normal duties, and given the assignment of protecting the cellist. (This may or may not be fact.) At first, she argues against such a colossal task. The cellist has become something of a national figure now. The music that spews forth from his instrument is more devastating to the surrounding soldiers than bombs or missiles or bullets. For this music is hope. And hope is not what the conquerors want to face. They want to face scared men and women, trembling children. Reluctantly, she accepts this assignment. For the most part, she listens to him play, thinks about her own personal history, and wonders if there will ever be a day that all of this can be forgotten. (I will spare any more details for fear of giving a crucial sequence of events away.)

Now, why did this story move me to tears? The answer may not be as simple as I once thought. I have never seen war. I hope to never see war. In all the accounts of war that I have read and heard firsthand from my father and brothers, not once was I ever moved to a state of sadness as I was upon completion of this book. When I finished reading this, I sat in my chair and thought about the man getting water from a well. He once had a life that was drastically different than the one he now lived. And then I thought about the old woman and wondered if she ever thought she would experience such cruelty in her lifetime. Then I thought about how this story, true events with an embellished backdrop, probably happened in some variant form. I thought about the places in the world that have escalating violence, and wondered if I will ever see it come to my country. I thought about history and the way it treats its victims. Then I thought about the cellist. I thought about his actions, his courage, his resolve to keep playing until he had honored each and every one of the 22 that were killed. And then I cried. Because I knew that I could never be that brave.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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Feb 28, 2010 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-reads

This book is raw and powerful. Written in the present tense, you are with the characters on the streets of Sarajevo during the siege of 1992-1995. It isn't fun being there, but it is compelling. The cellist plays for 22 days in the crater from a shell that killed 22 people standing in line for bread. Why?

The author has taken a dark event in human history and crafted a story whose theme transcends that event and is relevant to each life in every situation: Each life is important, that self respec...more

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Jun 19, 2010 Susan Rich rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was skeptical of a book written about Sarajevo by someone who neither lived through the seige nor who is a Bosnian, but I was wrong. The book is a lyrical song to a city l love very much. Clearly, the author has done enormous research and spent time in the city with Sarajevans. All that aside, what I love about this book is the deep empathy with the characters and with the city. Something about living in these unspeakable conditions is understood by the writer and rendered here with beauty and...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Annalisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Annalisa by: Jeana

Shelves: historical-fiction, literary

My favorite part of this book was the discussion of Sarajevo's role in starting the first World War with an assassination. "When the world thought of Sarajevo, it was as a place of murder. It isn't clear to him how the world will think of the city now that thousands have been murdered. He suspects that what the world wants most is not to think of it all."

I was in high school when the siege on Sarajevo began. And honestly, I didn't know, or at least had forgotten, about Sarajevo's role in WWI, be...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Buggy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, not-so-hea, shelf-11, survival, war

Opening line: “It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort.”

A few years ago while I was travelling in Europe I met a guy from Sarajevo and we became friends. At one point he asked me if I knew anything about what had happened in his country. I replied that I knew very little, only what I'd seen on the news. Sasha laughed and never said another word on the subject, which at the time I found strange. Now I know why, what could he possibly say that I'd understand?

This is a beautiful...more Opening line: “It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort.”

A few years ago while I was travelling in Europe I met a guy from Sarajevo and we became friends. At one point he asked me if I knew anything about what had happened in his country. I replied that I knew very little, only what I'd seen on the news. Sasha laughed and never said another word on the subject, which at the time I found strange. Now I know why, what could he possibly say that I'd understand?

This is a beautifully written, haunting and thought provoking story that I only wish I could say I liked more. Because it is so well done I also found it painful to read, depressing, absolutely futile and leaving me feeling angry at the whole world. Which I guess is the point and the ultimate result of any war.

I think what surprised me most is how little I knew about this conflict especially when you consider that it happened between 1992 and 1996. I mean that’s not that long ago and it’s not like this happened in a third world country either, this was modern Europe. I just finished reading a book set during the Second World War about the siege of Leningrad and this reads almost the same. How is that possible? How was this even allowed to happen?

Inspired by a real event this novel follows the lives of an unnamed cellist along with three others trying to survive in a besieged, war torn Sarajevo. It begins in the midst of a country gone mad, a mortar attack has just killed 22 people waiting in line to buy bread. Our cellist decides that to honour the dead for the next 22 days he will play at the point of impact. At 4 o’clock he dons his ragged tuxedo, sits in the bomb crater and plays. This simple courageous act creates a moment of peace and beauty among the rubble it also makes him a target.

Meanwhile a female sniper named “Arrow” is ordered to keep the cellist alive. Crouched from her perch in a bombed out building she waits for the counter-sniper who has surely been sent to kill him. She remembers back to a time when she went to college and flirted with boys at nightclubs and wonders how her life has became this?

The two other characters we follow disturbed me the most; An elderly baker on his way to work on his day off to get his daily ration of bread and a father making the long trek to “the brewery” to collect water for his family. A simple walk through the remains of the city has become a perilous journey. Mortars fall and the “men on the hill” go about their deadly business. Nobody is safe. Crossing the street had become a game of “Serajavan roulette” as the snipers pick off pedestrians. Should I cross now? Should I walk, run, crouch, crawl, go with a group? How do they decide who to shoot? But you need water and you have to eat. You have to make it across the intersection to keep your family alive.

These two men show us the city of Sarajevo as they walk through its remains and it very much becomes a character of its own here. The city shows us beauty and resilience and the men show us bravery, paralysing fear and humanity.(less)

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Feb 28, 2009 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended, canadian-author, reviewed-books

Feb. 28 update:

Since my trip to Whistler, where I had the chance to talk with, and listen to Steven, I have learned that the original cellist and Steven are now on good tems. Apparently, there had been misunderstandings (language barrier could easily play a role!), but now, all is well. :)

Below, the review, as previously written:

Henceforward, when watching daily news clips from war-torn countries, I will think of the three main characters in this story, and what it must be like to live this real...more

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Jun 17, 2008 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm three-quarters of the way through this powerful novel that follows the lives of four individuals trapped in the daily horrifying grip of war in Sarajevo. What's luminous and gripping about it is how it is the first time I've read something about a war that literally makes me feel the tension/persistence/wrestling with how to be a civilized human in the middle of chaos. Heartbreaking. Makes me think of e.e.cummings line "pity this busy monster, manunkind..." Well worth the (quick) read. The p...more

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May 16, 2011 Natalie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, historical-fiction

Books about music, about people hearing music, about music stopping time I have a love/hate relationship with reading them, I want to listen to them, hear the music myself -RIGHT NOW. I am too impatient or too lazy or both to read well about music. I should have remembered this about myself before opening this book.

Those of us who who haven't had our listening interrupted by shelling thankfully can't truly imagine the sound of music played in those circumstances. Books about the sounds of war -...more

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Dec 14, 2008 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: borders-original-voices

A truly AMAZING, 5 out of 5 stars, book that, simply put, everyone should read. It follows three stories - four, if you include the cellist's - of trying to survive and retain one's humanity (literally, as in being alive and human at the same time) while living in Sarajevo during the 1992-96 siege. The two men's stories (Keenan and Dragan) are particularly poignant and thought provoking: One man, a husband and a father, who is getting water for his family - a death defying act - and the other ma...more A truly AMAZING, 5 out of 5 stars, book that, simply put, everyone should read. It follows three stories - four, if you include the cellist's - of trying to survive and retain one's humanity (literally, as in being alive and human at the same time) while living in Sarajevo during the 1992-96 siege. The two men's stories (Keenan and Dragan) are particularly poignant and thought provoking: One man, a husband and a father, who is getting water for his family - a death defying act - and the other man who is trying to cross the city to get bread and have a meal. I've never lived in or through any situation even remotely like what is described, but reading this book makes these situations eerily real.

The writing is incredible - Mr. Galloway is a genius of just the right phrase without showing off. Reading this book reminds me of looking at a beautiful marble sculpture where just exactly just the right amount - no more, no less - has been chipped away. In this case, just the right number of words and the exact choices of words laid in a row in just the right order. Truly a work of art, while being very human and accessible at the same time. It's been a long time since I felt compelled to re-read a book - I read this book for the first time last Spring and again this week. As with any classic piece of literature, it was that much better the second time around, and for this read-through I savored the words, language, phrasing, and sentences since I didn't feel compelled to race ahead to find out what happens.

Note one thing while reading this book: The author never uses words like "Christian," "Muslim," "Serb," "Croat," "Bosnian," and others. This is a book about what people are capable of doing to other people, and which, in this instance, happened to occur in and to Sarajevo. What happened to the city of Sarajevo happened for FOUR YEARS a mere decade-plus ago. Shame on us!

To those who like this book, I recommend the essays (and other works) of Slavenka Drakulic; also Alex Dragnich's "Serbs and Croats; The Struggle in Yugoslavia." Also, Geraldine Brooks's recent novel, "People of the Book." Scott Simon of NPR fame has also written "Pretty Birds," a novel that also takes place in Sarajevo during the siege (the jacket cover notes that Simon covered the siege as a journalist), but I haven't read it yet and can't recommend it either way.(less)

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Apr 16, 2010 Rose rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: group-chicks-on-lit

My words cannot do this book justice, therefore, I quote the author.

"Why do you suppose he's there? Is he playing for the people who died? Or is he playing for the people who haven't? What does he hope to accomplish?"

(Arrow is a female sniper who hates and kills the men attacking the city and it's citizens from the hills. She is reassigned to protect the cellist from harm.)

"Arrow let the slow pulse of the vibrating strings flood into her. She felt the lament raise a lump in her throat, fought b...more

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Aug 27, 2008 A.J. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, literary, canadian

The Cellist of Sarajevo has received good reviews and on the surface has a lot going for it. It's well written, convincing in its detail and doesn't waste words. Three characters struggle to get by in besieged Sarajevo. Kenan walks off to get water for his family and neighbours; Dragan to get bread. The third, Arrow, is a female sniper charged with protecting the cellist, who for twenty-two days will play in the Markale marketplace to commemorate the victims of a mortar attack.

The triple, parall...more The Cellist of Sarajevo has received good reviews and on the surface has a lot going for it. It's well written, convincing in its detail and doesn't waste words. Three characters struggle to get by in besieged Sarajevo. Kenan walks off to get water for his family and neighbours; Dragan to get bread. The third, Arrow, is a female sniper charged with protecting the cellist, who for twenty-two days will play in the Markale marketplace to commemorate the victims of a mortar attack.

The triple, parallel narrative struction Galloway uses is a staple of contemporary fiction; five minutes in your local bookstore will suffice to find a novel featuring three unrelated characters whose stories are drawn together by some central event or symbol. That's fine, but the problem is the way it can suggest we have a false solidarity, as the three stories all arrive at the same conclusion. When that happens, we arrive not at some kind of truth but at a literary contrivance.

This is where The Cellist of Sarajevo goes off the rails. When you step back and look at it from a critical distance, the novel becomes irritatingly contrived. This is most evident in the story of Arrow, the female sniper. The contrivance appears in the timeline: while Dragan's and Kenan's stories cover a single day, Arrow's stretches over several days, but is presented in parallel. Her character, too, is contrived. While Kenan and Dragan are convincingly everyman, Arrow is exceptional. She's not only an exceptionally skilled sniper, but she sets her own rules, choosing her own missions and working outside the normal chain of command.

There is no real tragedy in Galloway's Sarajevo. People die, to be sure, but each of the three characters emerges clean and morally unscathed, overcomes his (or her) flaws and becomes a better human being. There is no sense that wars call on people to do terrible things; there is no moral ambiguity. There is no sense that the most difficult question for Sarajevans is not how they will survive the war, but how they will live with themselves and their neighbours in the aftermath. Instead, the novel offers simplistic platitudes: killing people is wrong, and art will heal our wounded humanity.

Notably, the real-world cellist whom Galloway used to unify his novel is less concerned with art than with cold, hard cash, and as soon as the novel hit the best-seller list he demanded some. This alone should suggest there's something awry with this novel's vision.(less)

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Dec 13, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub, canadian-authors

A stark look at three lives affected by the siege on Sarajevo in the 1990's. I liked how Galloway avoided identifiers like “Muslim,” “Serb,” “Croat” and “Bosnian,” or any ethnic or religious labels in The Cellist of Sarajevo. The main characters are simply referred to as Sarajevans, their common enemy described only as “the men on the hills.”

There is a good mix of inner and outer demons. I think Galloway did a good job of showing what war does to ordinary citizens. And I liked how Galloway show...more

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Apr 09, 2008 Cardi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

powerful, moving novel focusing on 4 characters in Sarajevo during the siege, each making their own act of defiance and ultimately refusing to give in to hate...
I didn't know a lot about the Sarajevo siege prior to reading this. It's mind boggling that people had to live like this for YEARS in Europe in the nineties. Yet another example of the big powerful western countries letting a beseiged nation of people down, it's so sad. Sarajevo was like some of the worst nightmares I've had, every day.....more

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Dec 02, 2008 *Christie* rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: EVERYONE

Recommended to *Christie* by: Robert

Everyone: read this book. I feel so blessed and sick at the same time. Blessed for where I live. Sick for the ignorance that's been mine. How many people are suffering every day while I go about my life? As a parent I was struck by the idea of having to sacrifice your life just so that your child could have water. It's humbling. This is one of the best books that I have read. My next step is to learn more about the conflict in Sarajevo.

SPOILER HERE ----> How amazing is the humanity in each pe...more

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Jun 15, 2008 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had been reading complex books—sung and literary books—and then began to read CELLIST, which was alarmingly simple at first in terms of words on a page, almost, in places, words plunked down, and then the storm of the story itself surged, and the horror of a place in which one cannot even safely cross a street set in, and I found this book to be very, very fine, and thoroughly unforgettable.

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Jun 02, 2010 Angel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, canadian-authors

3 1/2 Stars!!
Although as I play Albinoni's Adagio in the background as I type this, part of me really wants to change it to a full 5 stars,but I can't. Steven Galloway has an amazing writing ability to capture the strength of the human heart. For me I do not enjoy reading or watching anything related to war! Call me ignorant,for I turn a blind eye to war and yet it is happening everyday all around us in some form or another in our beautiful scarred up universe!
As I listen to the music I understa...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Kate Z rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Book club selection for April 2012. I've been wanting to read a Sarajevo/Yugoslavia story and The Tiger's Wife did not do it for me (that was much more a character story than a story of the conflict). This book already promises to be a book about Yugoslavia itself.

It's easy to know (and like) the characters in this book: the Cellist, Arrow the sniper, Dragan the older Sarajevan and Kenan, the father trying to get water for his family. They are introduced and their stories are told almost like p...more Book club selection for April 2012. I've been wanting to read a Sarajevo/Yugoslavia story and The Tiger's Wife did not do it for me (that was much more a character story than a story of the conflict). This book already promises to be a book about Yugoslavia itself.

It's easy to know (and like) the characters in this book: the Cellist, Arrow the sniper, Dragan the older Sarajevan and Kenan, the father trying to get water for his family. They are introduced and their stories are told almost like poetic vignettes, not so much like linear plot. Somehow the way that Sarajevo is revealed through these characters makes it beautiful, even as the reader is given clear portraits of the destruction of the city. The book is as much life philosophy of lives lived during war than a traditionally plotted novel.

Galloway has a very clear point of view and the novel falls a bit on the didactic side in that he's sure to tell you - in that way I found the book a bit more like reading Walden or Emerson. Modern transcendentalism wrapped up in a short novel. Here's an example, taken from a section about Arrow, the sniper. She is charged with protecting the Cellist as he carries out his quest (tribute?) to play the Albinoni Adagio every day in the hole in the street hollowed out by a mortar blast which killed 22 people standing in line for bread. She is standing in the square where the mortar has left its crater, looking around and waiting.

"She reaches down and picks up a small piece of glass. Glass is disappearing from the city. It's either blown up or removed to prevent it from becoming a lethal projectile when it inevitably is blown up. One pane at a time the windows through which people see the world are vanishing.

That is how she believes life happens. One small thing at a time. A series of inconsequential junctions, any or none of which can lead to salvation or disaster.There are no grand moments where a person does or does not perform the act that defines their humanity. There are only moments that appear, briefly, to be this way."

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Jul 03, 2010 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

This was an excellent book. It is set during the three year siege of Sarejevo. The cellist witnesses twenty-two people killed during a bomb attack and decides to play his cello every afternoon for 22 to days to commemorate their deaths. However, the book is not about the cellist. Rather, his music is a link between the three characters from whose viewpoint we experience the seige - Arrow, a young woman who has become a sniper; Dragan, an older man trying to cross a sniper-controlled intersection...more This was an excellent book. It is set during the three year siege of Sarejevo. The cellist witnesses twenty-two people killed during a bomb attack and decides to play his cello every afternoon for 22 to days to commemorate their deaths. However, the book is not about the cellist. Rather, his music is a link between the three characters from whose viewpoint we experience the seige - Arrow, a young woman who has become a sniper; Dragan, an older man trying to cross a sniper-controlled intersection; and Kenan, a father negotiating the dangerous streets to get water for his family.

The book is about everyday people and how they cope with living in the middle of a warzone. Unlike some war stories, it doesn't attempt to create emotion through large-scale events or extreme use of emotion. Indeed, its strength lies in creating understated characters to which the reader will be able to relate. As I read of Kenan's journey, I could easily imagine how it would feel for my husband to making the same journey.

In essence, the book is hopeful. It is a story about the struggle to retain personal integrity under the stress of war. Each of the characters refuse to let the war dictate their life. As Dragan says: "He isn't built for war. He doesn't want to be built for war."

It is also a story of courage. The characters often feel weak and afraid, yet they show courage by maintaining their belief in their city and by continuing to live as they must, day by day. Kenan, in particular, feels like a coward. Yet, every four days he makes a treacherous journey to get water for his family. His courage is perhaps the most simple - the courage of a father doing what he has to do to keep his family alive. "He doesn't want to have to walk through the streets of his city and look at the buildings and with every step be afraid that he's about to be killed. But he has no choice... His family needs water, and he will get it for them." The book is about everyday people. "They're not cowards, and they're not heroes."

I really enjoyed this book. It gave me an insight into the lives of people living in warzones. I pray that I will never experience it.(less)

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Nov 03, 2008 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway is a work of fiction that was inspired by an actual event that occurred in Sarajevo in 1992.

In the actual story a musician, by the name of Vedran Smailovic, witnessed 22 friends and family members die from mortar fire while they were waiting to buy bread. As a memorial to these individuals he sat at the site where those 22 people had died and played his cello for 22 days honoring these people.

This story itself involves four characters: the cellist who...more

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Jun 12, 2008 Eileen K. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The peaceful and beautiful cover of this book belies the ugliness of war depicted within. Set in Sarajevo during the seige of that city, chapters alternately tell the stories of four characters as they live their lives disrupted by the snipers "on the hills." In Sarajevo, the library has been destroyed, the opera house - destroyed also. All the markings of a civilized society have disappeared.

Within this context, the cellist makes his brave statement, his personal act of defiance. After witness...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Zoe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all

Recommended to Zoe by: serenpidity

History and philosphy (sp) about life under stress,
the power of the human spirit, the decisions we all must make.
So readable, so profound, so simple. And rather short.
Though the subject is not "happy," the book left me feeling wiser and empowered, and with more knowledge of history!

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Jan 10, 2009 Sherie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think this book deserves my 5 stars, because it moved me from a comfortable complacency to a place of never taking my freedom for granted. How long this will last, I am not certain , but it has impacted me for a time. In the book, one of the characters who is scuttling through the streets, becomes aware of his furitive behavior and proclaims that he isn't built for war and that he doesn't want to be built for war.
Who among us is built for war? Do we know any of them? What are they like and ho...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Karl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an incredibly well written novel of a brutal conflict. Galloway portrays the agonizing existence of Sarajevans while a musician pays homage to the dead through his cello in a public square. The spare language used along with frank descriptions leave one despairing for humankind. His description of the wanton destruction of a beautiful, historic city by ruthless killers is at times painful to read. The beauty of music and the fortitude of humanity make this, in the end, a compelling and w...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Spock rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Il nucleo centrale del libro e' la storia del violoncellista Vedran Smajlovi�� che nelle fasi iniziali dell'assedio di Sarajevo si esibi' in mezzo alle rovine della citta'. Non solo per i concittadini assediati ma affinche' l'essere umano in genere riscoprisse in se quello che la guerra cercava continuamente di cancellare: la capacita' di "sentire".
Attorno a questo fatto reale si intrecciano le storie di tre personaggi fittizi ma totalmente credibili: la ragazza cecchino Freccia; il giovane padr...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Cellist is set in the real backdrop of the Siege of Sarajevo, a six year war in which Sarajevo withstood a barrage of mortar shells averaging 329 per day and snipers picking people off the streets around the clock. It was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, killing 10,000 people, and wounding 56,000. In case you are wondering, the cellist playing Albinoni’s Adagio (I’m listening to it as I write this at) unprotected in the middle of the street was an actual man doing that ver...more The Cellist is set in the real backdrop of the Siege of Sarajevo, a six year war in which Sarajevo withstood a barrage of mortar shells averaging 329 per day and snipers picking people off the streets around the clock. It was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, killing 10,000 people, and wounding 56,000. In case you are wondering, the cellist playing Albinoni’s Adagio (I’m listening to it as I write this at) unprotected in the middle of the street was an actual man doing that very thing. Kind of changes the import of this book. It’s poetry, but it isn’t JUST poetry.

The story centers on four characters in four predicaments: A cellist plays for 22 days unguarded in a street where mortar shells killed 22 waiting in a bread line, a sniper snipes snipers (yep), a man freezes before the terrifying prospect of crossing a street where sniper fire is concentrated, and a man is fetching water, conflicted about whether or not to carry an old woman’s handle-less water jugs who refuses to accept water in anything but. The theme resounds in all four: inner beauty and love overcomes environmental darkness and hate. Each have a choice to become “a ghost while you’re still alive...washed away from the ground until even the memory of us is gone”; or to remain a vulnerable, throbbing human being with a chance at love and happiness. The fragile thread of life is grimly depicted by Galloway as puppet strings, holding the citizens up one moment, only to “drop abruptly as though they were marionettes and their puppeteer has fainted.” And yet, in spite of this volatility, they live with the hope that they are not just another “piece of incidental detritus lying forgotten at the scene of a massacre.”

The quote preceding the first chapter becomes eerily pendent in the back of the reader’s mind, “You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you” (Leon Trotsky). This novel isn’t anti-war, it’s anti-hate. Though I believe the word hate is an underutilized word for healthy emotional repulsion to harmful situations and people, and prematurely boycotted by the superstitious, in the context of this novel hate is designated as a loss of community conscience and surrender to hostile selfishness, and it is therefore rightly anathema to the citizens’ well-being. To quote a colleague who commented on this book, “Hate diminishes self, and you only have so much to give away.” Yet, although opposed to hate, he humorously explores in Part One how pessimism and optimism might both be useful emotional responses, and pessimism might be ‘less negative’ (positive?) than what is typically assigned as its social value, “A pessimist says, ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ And an optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse.’” Still, while pessimism may be present as a coping mechanism in hard times, hate is clearly condemned as the only real killer.

For me, the most thought-provoking part was when Kenan is running across a street-crossing that a sniper is zeroed in on. He finally runs across and, safe on the other side, he looks back and observes what appears to be a fellow-pedestrian laughing. “She is, he realizes, using him as her guinea pig, just as he did the couple before. Did he reassure her, he wonders, or make her more reluctant to cross? She doesn’t move from shelter, so he assumes he didn’t instill any confidence in her.” What an hilarious concept. It occurred to me while reading this that we are the crash-test dummies to our own beliefs. People are watching to see how we fair, watching to see if we make it out alive and with all limbs intact. I have to ask myself, does my life inspire confidence in the next guy in line, or laughter? Hey! That was rhetorical!!!

You’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for a realistic chronicle of events. It felt very poetic overall, intended as a window into the subjective perceptions and ethical dilemmas of the characters. We aren’t presented with a scenario, as much as a viewpoint—concomitant feelings and all; but slogging through the incidents to get to the points was a bit too slow in places. The end sort of fizzled out in predictability, and the moral was reiterated throughout the story ad nauseum. The image of the cellist playing music in the middle of the street is probably the most this book has going for it as far as appeal to get started, but the cellist didn’t move much—literally or literarily. Oh. Oh, that was beautiful. Please, if you didn’t get anything else out of this review, at the very least nominate me for a Pulitzer based on those three words alone.

So, I definitely caught the music, sweet and pensive, but it faded too soon.

To listen to Albinoni’s Adagio go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMbvcp...

And for all those Neverending Story fans out there, I found Albinoni’s Adagio in the Deadly Swamps of Sadness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx0q5d.... I grew up on Albinoni and never knew it!!!!
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Oct 09, 2011 Vanessa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the moving tale of four people who in their own ways try to make sense of their lives and retain civilization in a city that has become defined by the chaos, inhumanity and horror of war. The characters try not to let war define them and to rise above what the men on the hills are trying to force them to become: savage, broken animals, motivated by fear. Basic human needs like food and water require the inhabitants of Sarajevo to embark on quests the like of which most of us have never h...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Ron added it · review of another edition

This is an intriguing and powerful, if fictional, account of the lives of three people during the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s. It is based on a true event [the cellist playing the same tune day and day when he could have been killed] but developed fictionally by using the anecdotes of a professional counter-sniper, Arrow, and two ordinary men of the city going about a daily life of survival. At times the tension is strong and the reader is really drawn into the terrible risks of crossin...more

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Apr 20, 2010 Joyce Lagow rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Cellist of Sarajevo[return]Stephen Galloway[return][return]An Early Reviewer book.[return][return]On May , 1992, while waiting in line to buy bread, 22 people were killed and over 70 wounded by an incoming mortar shell from the forces laying siege to Sarajevo in what would be a four year war. For 22 days afterwards, every afternoon at 4 o� clock, the time his neighbors and fellow citizens were killed, a cellist played the Albinoni Adagio.[return][return]This real incident is the basis for Ga...more The Cellist of Sarajevo[return]Stephen Galloway[return][return]An Early Reviewer book.[return][return]On May , 1992, while waiting in line to buy bread, 22 people were killed and over 70 wounded by an incoming mortar shell from the forces laying siege to Sarajevo in what would be a four year war. For 22 days afterwards, every afternoon at 4 o� clock, the time his neighbors and fellow citizens were killed, a cellist played the Albinoni Adagio.[return][return]This real incident is the basis for Galloway� s novel, in which he compresses four years of the war into three weeks. He follows three rather ordinary Sarajevans: Arrow, a female university student turned sniper; Kenan, a young father of two children; Dagan, a 64 year old baker whose wife and son were evacuated to Italy before leaving became impossible. The main action follows Kenan, as he makes an every 4-day, extremely dangerous journey to a brewery in order to obtain water for his family, Dagan, as he tries to go to the bakery to get a free loaf of bread, and Arrow, who is given the assignment of protecting the cellist, since he has become a symbol of resistance to the degradation of the war.[return][return]Galloway does a superb job in portraying the horrors of civilian life in just trying to stay alive under the most desperate and dangerous conditions. No little thing can be taken for granted; the opposing army has shut off the water to the city, so just getting water becomes a life-threatening act, as the besiegers, through snipers and artillery fire, deliberately kill civilians. There is a relatively safe passageway through a tunnel underneath the airport to unoccupied territory, but that is controlled by the Sarajevan army and the criminal element, who take the aid donated by the world for the relief of Sarajevo and sell it on the black market. There is a resolution to the story, but it is a moral one, rather than a physical one, as each character independently reaches the same conclusion about the the way they will resist the moral degradation being forced on them.[return][return]Ultimately, this is a story about decisions, those made day-by-day and even minute by minute. Galloway makes a forceful statement about our lives being the sum total of those decisions, and that each one--whether to pull a trigger and end a human life or whether to cross a street at this moment and not the next one, have vast consequences. It is a very Zen-like statement.[return][return]While powerful, the book has several severe flaws. Arrow has a distinct personality, but Dagan and Kenan are indistinguishable; if you don� t have the chapter headings, given their identical reactions and thoughts, it� s easy to lose sight of just what character is playing. Also, there are pages of retrospection on the part of each of the three, as they reach their conclusions of how they must act. I am probably as introspective as anyone outside of a mental institution, but even I can not imagine, when terrified for my life, trying to decide whether to choose this moment or the next to cross a street under random sniper fire, after watching someone� s head being blown off, that I would be spending that time musing on cultural values. For me, this aspect was beyond credulity. Yet it� s an integral part of the story line in order for Galloway to have his characters resolve their moral dilemmas. Galloway spent a great deal of time with survivors of Sarajevo, and visited the city. I suspect that this philosophizing did go on, but I doubt strongly that it was under fire, as Galloway portrays it.[return][return]Still, in its depiction of what war can do to the ordinary person, it� s a powerful, if flawed, book.(less)

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Mar 16, 2009 Iain Snelling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, this book divided the Hallam Cricket Club book club. I liked it very much, but the general feeling wasn't at all positive. I thought it convincingly explored the daily horrors of living in the siege, and the sense of bewilderment that that haracters felt. The three characters whose perspectives are given in detail are all plausible, and surviving as best they can - there is real suspense in places, particularly in the struggle to cross the road with the snipers firing down on them. I think...more

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Mar 12, 2009 Karma rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a beautiful book! It embodied the hope of the human spirit. A story of four civilians and one sniper living in war seiged Sarajevo; the author explores the trials, feelings, and war time events a non-military person could experience. I thought the writing was poetic, the descriptions vivid, if not occasionally alarming, and the story relevant and hypnotic. I could not put this book down! This story is a tribute to most of human kind - those of us that are not evil, yet not heroic. I wondere...more

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About Steven Galloway

Galloway was born in Vancouver, and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia. He attended the University College of the Cariboo and the University of British Columbia. His debut novel, Finnie Walsh, was nominated for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. His second novel, Ascension, was nominated for the BC Book Prizes' Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and has been translated into numerous langu...more

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Quotes from The Cellist of Sarajevo

“She felt an enveloping happiness to be alive, a joy made stronger by the certainty that someday it would all come to an end. Afterward she felt a little foolish, and never spoke to anyone about it.
Now, however, she knows she wasn't being foolish. She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It's a rare gift to under stand that you life is wondrous, and that it won't last forever. ” — 34 people liked it

“A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.” — 18 people liked it

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