Words Are Something Else (Writings from An Unbound Europe)

Rating:
Summary: The dark side of the Moon
Review: Albahari's work is and will be a complex simplicity, a work wich will always make you think about the words: the power of words. Most of his work has not been translated yet. I hope that somebody will start doing it. If not, I will not be surprised, if Albahari will start to write in English - in that way the Ballkan will have the first Joseph Conrad! His stories are awesome, you will have a feeling that you are reading through a microscope, you will reveal thinks that you see but that you never percieved them before, you will start to be possesed by inner ideas how life is such a complex world (especially in Ballkan (sic!)), and with all it's tragic ingredients how terrible can it be when nationalism, hate and historical revenege starts to rise and to controll you ... If the Second WW was over the memories still remain.Albahari writes about it. He writes through his father or mother. But, what shall Albahari do now when the civil war in Yugoslavia destroyed the whole new generations! He still writes about his father and mother: the history will be rewinded again! There will be nothing new! The time in Ballkan doesen't exist, and if it does , then it exist differently. Serbs & Croats, Serbs & Muslims, Muslims& Croats, Serbs & Albanians ...they will slaughter each other and there will be nothing new under the Sun ... except the family saga of one Jewish family.

Rating:
Summary: david albahari is Europe's master of the short short story.
Review: the mystery of the word, the tricks of the mind, the lunacy of the everyday is the stuff of Europe's master short short story writer. this is the first translation of david albahari's work into English. he has published 10 collections of short stories and novellas to date and is considered one of the prime writers from the former Yugoslavia. He currently lives in Calgary, Canada, where he came from Belgrade to be Markin-Flanagan distinguished writer in residence in 1995. Of Jewish background, albahari is concerned with the depth and shallowness of human identity and the role that chance plays in survival. with a dark sense of humour and a light sense of tragedy he captures the pain of 20th century existence