Sarajevo a Beginnerʹs Guide

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This is an experience of mastering a new way of life, stitching together fragments of the former topography by a native of Mostar, Herzegovinian Kebo, who consciously chose to live in Sarajevo during the most difficult period of its recent history. And for this reason, he has every right to write about Sarajevo as he does: with dazzling irony, sincere suffering, and a love that constricts the throat. The first war April passes under the sign of a great exodus. The wise flee in panic. The less wise do not even grasp the meaning of that panic. The city is extinguishing. (…) Only two weeks have passed since the shooting began, and at that moment, no one yet knows the hunger that is approaching. Our positions were determined only at the end of April, when the noose around the city finally tightened. Only then did it become clear that there would be no peace, but war, and that it would not be a real war, but exhaustion. I turn on the light and write down on a sheet the names of people who are no longer in Sarajevo. The geography of dispersion: Zagreb, Istanbul, Warsaw, London. A few friends remain at different ends of the city. The devil is in the details. Details are not visible behind illusions. I turn off the light. I plunge into darkness lasting three years.