4.0
My Heart
ByPublisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"Intelligent, honest, and full of heart," My Heart is an intimate work of autobiographical fiction by one of ex-Yugoslavia's greatest writers about his family's experience as refugees from the Bosnian war—a timeless story of love, memory, and the resilience of the human spirit that "has all the qualities one might seek in a friend" (Etgar Keret, author of The Seven Goods Years).
"Today, it seems, was the day I was meant to die." When a writer suffers a heart attack at the age of fifty, he must confront his mortality in a country that is not his native home. Confined to a hospital bed and overcome by a sense of powerlessness, he reflects on the fragility of life and finds extraordinary meaning in the quotidian. In this affecting autobiographical novel, Semezdin Mehmedinovic explores the love he and his family have for one another, strengthened by trauma; their harrowing experience of the Bosnian war, which led them to flee for the United States as refugees; eerie premonitions of Donald Trump's presidency; the life and work of a writer; and the nature of memory and grief.
Poetically explosive and pure to the core, My Heart serves as a kind of mirror, reflecting our human strengths and weaknesses along with the most important issues on our minds--love and death, the present and the past, sickness and health, leaving and staying.
"Intelligent, honest, and full of heart," My Heart is an intimate work of autobiographical fiction by one of ex-Yugoslavia's greatest writers about his family's experience as refugees from the Bosnian war—a timeless story of love, memory, and the resilience of the human spirit that "has all the qualities one might seek in a friend" (Etgar Keret, author of The Seven Goods Years).
"Today, it seems, was the day I was meant to die." When a writer suffers a heart attack at the age of fifty, he must confront his mortality in a country that is not his native home. Confined to a hospital bed and overcome by a sense of powerlessness, he reflects on the fragility of life and finds extraordinary meaning in the quotidian. In this affecting autobiographical novel, Semezdin Mehmedinovic explores the love he and his family have for one another, strengthened by trauma; their harrowing experience of the Bosnian war, which led them to flee for the United States as refugees; eerie premonitions of Donald Trump's presidency; the life and work of a writer; and the nature of memory and grief.
Poetically explosive and pure to the core, My Heart serves as a kind of mirror, reflecting our human strengths and weaknesses along with the most important issues on our minds--love and death, the present and the past, sickness and health, leaving and staying.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesMy Heart Reviews
4.0
Karla
Created 3 months agoShare
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Umar Lee
Created 7 months agoShare
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“Great book from the Bosnian writer and the best work of fiction I've read in a long time. There are many themes covered in this book including death, disaporic memory, the aging process, finding one's sense of place in a new country, linguistics, Islamophobia, and more.
We begin this book with the protagonist in the hospital with a heart attack and reminiscing on the journey taking his family from the former Yugoslavia to Phoenix to Northern Virginia. The Bosnian writer makes poignant observations such as declaring he isn't white; but as a Bosnian Muslim he's always something other no matter where in the world he is. He makes humorous ones as well such as his observation on just how obsessed Americans are with dogs.
I was motivated to read this book because I live in St Louis which is the city with the largest Bosnian population in America and troubling news reports point to the possibility of a new conflict in Bosnia. St Louis makes a brief appearance in this book; but it was in Northern Virginia where I got a real treat as the family lives in the same Falls Church neighborhood I used to and mentions several familiar places.
This is a brief book and Mehmedinovic is precise and economical with language.”
Maddie K
Created 7 months agoShare
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Sam 🖤 Paper Knot Books
Created 7 months agoShare
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Michelle Sinofsky
Created 7 months agoShare
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About Semezdin Mehmedinovic
Semezdin Mehmedinović was born in 1960 in Kiseljak near Tuzla. He studied comparative literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. A poet and an essayist, Mehmedinović has held the position of an editor in newspapers, weeklies, as well as on the radio and television. He has edited a number of culture magazines and has been involved in the film industry. Sarajevo Blues and Nine Alexandrias have been published among his other works. Since 1996, he has been living in the United States.
Other books by Semezdin Mehmedinovic
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