{"title":"Books by Aleksandar Hemon","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780330393485","title":"The Question of Bruno","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eThe World and All That It Holds\u003c\/i\u003e, Aleksandar Hemon's stunning debut \u003ci\u003eThe Question of Bruno\u003c\/i\u003e is a collection of beautifully told yet polically-charged short fiction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this elegy for the vanished Yugoslavia, Hemon's stories journey through the intertwined history of a family and a nation, writing in prose of unparalleled daring, invention and wit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis collection features the novella Blind Jozef \u0026amp; Dead Souls, as a young immigrant to the United States watches while his homeland of Sarajevo falls to a violent siege.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Like Nabokov, Hemon writes with the startling peeled vision of the outsider, weighing words as if for the first time; he shares with Kundera an ability to find grace and humour in the bleakest of circumstances’ – \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286147445109,"sku":"9780330393485","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780330393485_d6408e13-2a5a-4f29-ab3f-99742ec0d06e.jpg?v=1786013508"},{"product_id":"9780330464444","title":"Love and Obstacles","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Some of the richest delights in contemporary fiction, as well as some of the best jokes’ – \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe World and All That It Holds\u003c\/i\u003e, Aleksandar Hemon, \u003ci\u003eLove and Obstacles \u003c\/i\u003eis a stunningly original collection of short fiction.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe explosive perils of adolescence, a country falling apart, the overwhelming vertigo of striking out abroad: this is life in which love is only one of many obstacles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom Sarajevo to the darkest heart of Africa, deepest Slovenia, and the melting pot of Chicago, this brilliant and restlessly inventive collection is shot through with humour and truth – found in the most surprising of places.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Infinitely vibrant and alive’ – \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286185914741,"sku":"9780330464444","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780330464444_2bcf0fa0-b3ed-44b1-b366-ac9600a1e7c9.jpg?v=1792423204"},{"product_id":"9780330515795","title":"The World and All That It Holds","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'This life-stuffed novel is Aleksandar Hemon’s masterpiece' - David Mitchell, author of \u003ci\u003eCloud Atlas\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe World and All That It Holds \u003c\/i\u003eis the epic, cross-continental tale of a love so strong it conquers the Great War, revolution, and even death itself.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it’s nothing a dash of laudanum, a summer stroll and idle fantasies can’t put in perspective.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto’s introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller and Pinto’s protector and lover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTogether, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches and find themselves entangled with spies and Bolsheviks. As they travel over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another, all the way to Shanghai, it is Pinto’s love for Osman that will truly survive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A staggering work of beauty and brutality' - Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eShuggie Bain \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eYoung Mungo\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56286590927221,"sku":"9780330515795","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780330515795_cfd1804c-a14f-47bf-bea1-a89a1cfa0358.jpg?v=1786013603"},{"product_id":"9781447210917","title":"The Book of My Lives","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eThe World and All That It Holds\u003c\/i\u003e, Aleksandar Hemon's \u003ci\u003eThe Book of My Lives\u003c\/i\u003e is an unforgettable memoir of a life forever marked by international conflict.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAleksandar Hemon grew up in a blissful Sarajevo, where his childhood was consumed by football, his adolescence by friends, movies and girls and where, as a young man, he poked at the pretensions of his beloved city with American music, bad poetry, and slightly better journalism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, at twenty-seven, Hemon flew to Chicago for a month-long visit. A matter of weeks later Sarajevo was engulfed in an atrocious war. Hemon found himself an exile. He wouldn’t return home for five years and, when he did, he found his city irrevocably changed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘If you’ve never read Aleksandar Hemon, prepare to have your worldview deepened’ – Jonathan Safran Foer, author of \u003ci\u003eExtremely Loud and Incredibly Close\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56300072075637,"sku":"9781447210917","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781447210917_095bb7c2-f0d5-48fd-ba3a-1611aaaade51.jpg?v=1786020501"},{"product_id":"9781529038460","title":"My Parents: An Introduction \/ This Does Not Belong to You","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTwo magnificent memoirs by Aleksandar Hemon, presented together in a glorious single edition: together they make a major work from one of our major writers.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e My Parents\u003c\/i\u003e, Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his parents’ immigration to Canada – of the lives that were upended by the war in Bosnia and siege of Sarajevo, and the new lives his parents were forced to build. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe portrays both the perfect, intimate details – of his mother’s lonely upbringing, his father’s fanatical beekeeping – and a sweeping, heartbreaking history of his native country. It is a story of his family and of German occupying forces, Yugoslav partisans, royalist Serb collaborators, singing Ukrainians, and a few confused Canadians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis Does Not Belong to You\u003c\/i\u003e is the exhilarating, freewheeling, unabashedly personal companion to \u003ci\u003eMy Parents\u003c\/i\u003e. It shows Hemon at his most dazzling and untempered in a series of beautifully distilled memories and observations about his family, friends and childhood in Sarajevo, presented as explosive, hilarious, poignant miniatures.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Not only is Hemon's book a masterpiece in literary terms, it is also a repudiation of the idea of the immigrant as a singular and infantilized creature, a human of lesser depth and complexity than everyone else’ – Rafia Zakaria, \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303048163701,"sku":"9781529038460","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529038460_6547b77b-ff5b-443e-9a01-2182aea9df8f.jpg?v=1786022580"},{"product_id":"behind-the-glass-wall","title":"Behind the Glass Wall","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn unprecedented glimpse into the strange and remarkable inner workings of the United Nations\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore he was invited to become the United Nations’ first writer in residence, Aleksandar Hemon had a complicated relationship with the institution, whose image was tainted by the UN Protection Forces’ delinquent and disgraceful presence in the Bosnian War. And yet he also understood that “without the UN, without the very idea of it, the crimes against Bosnians couldn’t be perceived as crimes against all humanity.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By the time Hemon had finished his residency at the United Nations—he and the Magnum photographer Peter van Agtmael were invited into the iconic New York City headquarters and given access to the secretary-general, the General Assembly, and the Security Council—his relationship with the institution was even more complicated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eBehind the Glass Wall\u003c\/i\u003e, Hemon shows us an essential modern institution at work, one both beautifully driven and profoundly crippled by its noble ideals. But above all he shows us an institution made up of cigarette-smoking, gossipy, hungry, angry, lovely, petty, brilliant people committed to the most inspiring of international principles, people who are at least as frustrated as we are by the world’s failure to live up to the goals of the Charter of the United Nations, people who get up every morning newly determined to achieve nothing less than peace on earth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499169358197,"sku":"9780374110239","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780374110239.jpg?v=1786694484"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-aleksandar-hemon.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}