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A review by nyom7
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
5.0
This is a beautiful book.
I may have lost a night’s sleep reading it. In the short term I may well regret this. In the long term however I have no regrets.
Told mostly from three perspectives (there is a fourth but their story is told slightly differently) it tells a fictionalised tale about the siege of Sarajevo. There are aspects of fact - the cellist is real - and of fiction but the fact vs fiction, at least for me, does not matter. It is the story that matters. Tiny, human, stories told on the backdrop and through the lens of a war they did not choose.
This is a book that gripped me. Held me. And carved out a little place for itself within me. I am quite certain that I will spend the next days and weeks, when my mind is able to sit in neutral, thinking about the questions this book posed and what answers if any I have to them.
Do not read this book if you are looking specifically for something light and cheery but also do not be put off by the setting, thinking it all dark and doom. There is a surprising lightness and hope to it.
I may have lost a night’s sleep reading it. In the short term I may well regret this. In the long term however I have no regrets.
Told mostly from three perspectives (there is a fourth but their story is told slightly differently) it tells a fictionalised tale about the siege of Sarajevo. There are aspects of fact - the cellist is real - and of fiction but the fact vs fiction, at least for me, does not matter. It is the story that matters. Tiny, human, stories told on the backdrop and through the lens of a war they did not choose.
This is a book that gripped me. Held me. And carved out a little place for itself within me. I am quite certain that I will spend the next days and weeks, when my mind is able to sit in neutral, thinking about the questions this book posed and what answers if any I have to them.
Do not read this book if you are looking specifically for something light and cheery but also do not be put off by the setting, thinking it all dark and doom. There is a surprising lightness and hope to it.