Rose of Sarajevo

I like this book because it contains one of the best descriptions I have read of the development of the fracture of Yugoslavia in the 1980s and 90s. I was fortunate to visit Yugoslavia in 1988 on a tour of Croatia. The tour guide started her introduction to the tour by stating that Yugoslavia was a country of x ethnicities, y religions, z languages, etc. I forget the exact numbers, somewhere more than 5. The implication was that Yugoslavia was less a melting pot, as portrayed by many, than a simmering pot. That pot soon boiled over, as described in this novel.Reader alert! You will need to understand a little Balkan and Ottoman history to appreciate this novel, but that can be obtained, for example, by scanning a few Wikipedia articles.The protagonist in this novel is a woman journalist in Sarajevo. Making her a journalist was a stroke of inspiration, as it allows the integration of history and fiction without seriously disrupting the story. That type of integration often fails. Ultimately, this is a story of survival and complex relationships, of love and redemption. It reveals the tragedy of Sarajevo without wallowing in the gore.The history is fairly detailed, but it does have a viewpoint. The Serbs are the villains here, as expected from a Turkish author with sympathy for Bosnia. However, she is an excellent storyteller, with a knack for portraying sympathetic characters. This is the second of her novels I have read, and I will look for others.

I was pushed off from reading this book because I read many negative reviews about it lacking substance. However, I'm so glad I gave it a shot because I liked it so much that I read it in a day, I just couldn't put it down.This book tells the story of the war in Croatia and Bosnia from the standpoint of a muslim news reporter in Bosnia. There's a lot of history in this book, but it is explained in such a way that you can understand the development of this very complicated war, and since its more like reporters talking about it, you get to feel like you are in the newsroom.Many of the negative reviews that I had read explained that the characters were flat and that they felt that something was missing in this book, but to be honest I actually enjoyed the way Kulin portrayed the characters because it enables the reader to put himself in the shoes of the characters. Do you really need someone to explain to you how would you feel in the middle of war when there is no food and people are massacred, or would you rather stop and think how would you feel in this situation? For me, this style of writing made the story more real - it enabled me to transport myself to this horrific period.

4.5A powerful read. The novel is set in Sarajevo in the 80's and 90's as Yugoslavia breaks apart. Nimeta is a Bosniak (Muslim) reporter and the novel follows the impact of the break-up on her family and friends, her work, and country and home of Sarajevo.With a main character as a reporter, Kulin is able to weave large chunks of history into the narrative - they still feel a bit slow, but she follows through with the personal, intimate view of the impact of those larger events. The novel has some grim moments, particularly as it gets into the massacres perpetrated by the Serbs. But the novel also shows the proud history of the Bosniaks and how they lived in peace for years with Serbs and Croats in the city of Sarajevo.While the novel's ending is ambiguous, I think it suits the themes and is a nod to what many who lived during that time dealt with.

This was definitely a depressing book though a good one. The writing is good and engaging and you have to feel the pain of the Bonsian as well as the disgust with the Serbs. You have to want to explore what went on in this war. It is hard to believe that any group could be encouraged to act as the Serbs did. It makes clear the power of propaganda and the weakness of people to see through it and to carry out horrific atrocities in the name of ethnic identity. It is good that the author exposed this and reminded me just how badly the Serbs acted. As with the German after WW2 I hope the Serbs realize what they have done and suffer the pain daily of knowing how horribly they acted.

I have become a fan of Ayse Kulin's books, because they are well-written, and because the fact that she is from Turkey gives her books a different perspective than I have, as an American. While there were a lot of good things about this book (well-written, an interesting plot, good characterization), it was set during the Bosnian War, and the author included some pretty graphic scenes related to the war. I realize this is historical fiction, but it was very painful to read about the atrocities that were committed against the Bosniaks. I only give it 4 stars, because it was so intense at times, that I could only read it in short segments.

I enjoyed a lot reading the "Rosa de Sarajevo" book. This story happens during times of war. This is real narration that happening NOW in some place in our planet earth. The central character is Nimeta, a mother, wife, daughter, sister, and lover. She is also a professional journalist, and a very string person, who keeps her family together during those struggles years. I like the way the author, Ayse Kulin, tell us horrible things that happen to human beings during a war. I like the words that she chooses, and the description of the feelings of those people. It keeps me interested and alert. I also enjoyed trying to read those names of people and places that I cannot pronounce, because I don not know Serbian neither Croatian, but I had a good time trying to read them. I read this book in my Kindle, then it was easy to take it when I went for appointments, to keep me busy when I was waiting. Thanks for let me share this wonderful experience. Ana Rojas

When the trouble in the Balkans kicked off in the early 1990s I was determined to follow it and try to understand what was going on. It was the first war of great 'relevance' in my life time - one happening within Europe on our doorstep at a time when I was old enough to pay attention and travelled enough to recognise some of the issues. The problem was that it VERY quickly got more than complicated and way beyond confusing. Books about that period - whether they are fiction or non-fiction - can help those of us who got lost too quickly amongst the terrible massacres and atrocities, baffled by the unpronounceable names of the leaders and the cities, to try to understand now, what we couldn't understand at the time.There are times when the book does feel a bit like it's trying to shoe horn a sort of 'brief history of the Balkans' into the fictional format in a rather forced way. That said, it did answer some very basic questions that had been playing on my mind about the ethnic make-up of the area. Undoubtedly it's one-sided because the writer is Turkish and the main characters are Bosniaks - Bosnian Muslims. But every book about this conflict is guaranteed to be bring its own biases.It's not an easy read because some of the material is deeply disturbing. Those passages are well written and don't labour the suffering. They present cold hard info and then move on because there's no need to over-play such horror. Sadly it's also not an easy read because most of the characters are basically rather unpleasant and unlikeable. The heroes and heroines are not 'nice' people, their relationships are as strained and tortured as their environment and the ending, when it comes, is unsatisfying and unmemorable. Whether the writing is poor or the translation is flawed, this book just doesn't 'flow' well but if you're looking for a book on the conflict from the Bosniak perspective, it's well worth a read.

The story of the book is based in Sarajevo in Bosnia and the beginning of war in Yugoslavia at the end of 1980's. It tells a story of a Bosnian family and their lives during that time. The story is so well written and you really get to know the main character of the book Nimeta and I got so engrossed in the story. I am Croatian and I was a child when a war in Yugoslavia broke so I don't remember that much about the war. So when I was reading this book I got really upset at horrific atrocities that happen in Croatia and Bosnia in particular during the war. It was very difficult to read some chapters in the book and they made me cry. The writer wanted to shock the readers by writing horrific true events that happened during the was so everyone knows the truth. This book is very interesting and it's celebrating the resilience of people in a country broken by war. I would have liked the story to be longer cos I did not want to finish reading it.

It was more a serious political book than a novel. There were a lot of things that I was ignorant about and had to look up on Google eg history of Yugoslavia and all its countries, religious differences, domination by the Ottomans/Hapsburgs in order to understand what the conflicts were about. Eg why is 90% of Kosovans ethnic Albanians? It would have helped to have had more explanation in the book. Right towards the end of the book the uncle and father of Fiko relate the country’s history to him but that should have come earlier. I found Nimeta annoying as a character, dismissing her mother for being supportive and organised yet neglecting her own children.

I've just finished reading the book; and to be honest, about half way through I was seriously thinking of stopping. I found it heavy going and confusing. family members. who had not been mentioned previously, suddenly took on major roles... The story jumped from place to place and different times without rhyme or reason. All of which I found surprising as I have also read Last Train to Istanbul which I enjoyed enormously.Then, all of a sudden, the compelling story started to be told of one of the most shameful periods of recent European history. Another ethnic cleansing which was allowed to happen in the 1990s - as if noone had learnt anything from the Holocaust. It is an important story to be told, but I feel that maybe the telling got lost in this novel.I got to the end and felt that I'd missed something, it came out of the blue and I was left disappointed, as if I'd lost the last chapter somehow. I'm glad I continued with book but ....If the author decides to revisit this topic, I would love something about the rebuilding of the Balkans, how the different ethnicities were able to rebuild their countries and their identities...

A very interesting book about a subject I knew little about despite reading about it carefullyin the 1990s when the horrific wars were taking place, this book through a story about families and theirfriends clarified some aspects about the history of Bosnia and the Bosniaks. There wereparts of the book I could hardly bear to read, so tragic and horrific were the circumstancesof the characters, who though fictitious displayed the reality of people's lives in Bosniaand other parts of the former Yugoslavia at that time. Apart from the impact of the war,the universal circumstances of their lives, made complicated by the gradual developmentif the war were very moving. This is the second book I have read by Ayse Kulin and I hopeto read more of her books.