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In the fields of literary and memory studies, the cultural impact of the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 appears—despite the scale of devastation—somewhat minimal. Reading War, Making Memory focuses on how authors from the diaspora of the former Yugoslavia have transmitted and translated the realities of the war in their fiction, illuminating how these texts interpolate the culture and memory of Bosnia-Herzegovina into an act of “mnemonic migration.” Drawing from close readings, studies of public reception, and focus group interviews, this volume explores the attempt to reshape social frameworks of memory, and the wider reception and impact of memory-making literature across Europe.
“This [book] deals with a topic that is highly relevant in the context of actual tendencies in European literatures, culture, and society. It brings forth the question of memory related to significant historic events. More precisely, it investigates the way these memories are represented and transmitted in contemporary literary works on the one hand, and how they affect (professional and lay) readers and their memory frames in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in some Northwestern countries on the other.” • Silvia Rybárová, Institut of World Literature SAS
Tea Sindbæk Andersen is Associate Professor of East European Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on the contemporary history of southeastern Europe, particularly on issues related to cultural memory, uses of history, identity politics, and popular culture in the Yugoslav area. She is the author of Usable History? Representations of Yugoslavia’s Difficult Past from 1945 to 2002 (Aarhus UP, 2012); co-editor with Barbara Törnquist-Plewa of The Twentieth Century in European Memory: Transcultural Mediation and Reception (Brill, 2018); and, with Jessica Ortner, of the Memory Studies special issue on “Memories of Joy” (2019).
Introduction: The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Literary Memory Mediations, and Mnemonic Migration
Part I: Portable Monuments: Memory Novels and Fictional Witnessing
Chapter 1. The Experiential Child Witness: Saša Stanišić’s Wie Der Soldat Das Grammophon Repariert (How the Solider Repairs the Gramophone)
Chapter 2. Memory as a Fictional Trial: Nicol Ljubić’s Meerestille (Stillness of the Sea)
Chapter 3. High-Definition Fictional Witnessing: Aleksandar Hemon’s ‘A Coin’
Chapter 4. War Memory Seen through the Banal Boredom of Refugee Live: Alen Mešković’s Ukulele Jam
Part II: Public Circulations of Literary Memory
Chapter 5. Quantifiable Success and Public Outreach: The Roles of Publishers, Libraries, and Publicity in Mnemonic Migration
Chapter 6. Professional Readings and Public Remediations
Part III: Readers’ Reception
Chapter 7. Reading Saša Stanišić’s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone: Mediations, Emotions, and Prosthetic Memory
Chapter 8. Fictional Witnessing and Frameworks of Memory – Engaging with Stanišić’s War Memory
Chapter 9. Reading Ljubić, Hemon, and Mešković: Mediations, Emotions and Prosthetic Memory
Chapter 10. Interpreting Ljubić, Hemon, and Mesković – Targeted Memory Transmissions and Frameworks of Memory
Chapter 11. Fictional Witnessing Returning to Bosnia-Herzegovina – Opening Mnemonic Grey Zones?
Chapter 12. Do Readers Remember One Year after?
Conclusions: Reading War, Making Memory?
Bibliography
Index