Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert/How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

Sasa Stanisic. Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert. Munich. Luchterhand. 2006. 313 pages. \19.95. isbn 978-3-630-87242-1

___. How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. Anthea Bell, tr. New York. Grove. 2008. x + 345 pages. $24. isbn 978-0-8021-1866-0

This semiautobiographical first novel by Sa}a Stani}ifl braids innocence and ethnonationalism, humor and horror, to portray ethnic conflict through the eyes of its Muslim-Serb boy narrator, Aleksandar Krsmanovifl. Like the Vi}egrad bridge that spans the Drina in Andrifl's The Bridge on the Drina, Aleksandar's largely first-person stories bridge the flow of time. The novel shuttles back and forth between past and present, giving previous events enhanced poignancy as it explores and embodies the magic and limits of storytelling in a world of pain and loss. Thus, on page 1 Aleksandar learns that what Grandpa Slavko calls his "greatest wealth," imagination, cannot resurrect his suddenly dead grandfather. Renouncing closure to protest mortality and...