This novel was written by Nobel Prize winning writer and proud native son of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ivo Andrić, in 1945, and was translated into English.
I will begin by saying that this is, of course, a very well written book. It did an amazing job of laying out hundreds of years of Balkan and Ottoman history from the perspective of Višegrad, a small town on the border between Bosnia and Serbia, and, specifically, a bridge crossing the river at this junction. While this book is historical fiction, I struggled with enjoying it as a part of this project - it took me a while to work my way through it. It is not a breezy book. It took me a bit to figure out why I had this reaction to it. In doing my virtual travel research about Bosnia and Herzegovina, I came across an interview with Andrić in which he argues that this should be categorized as a 'chronicle' instead of a 'novel' and I was very relieved to read that, because it framed what I was feeling. This was not a book full of characters that I could get to know over time. In fact, very true to the spirit of this project, the place was the primary character in the book, and that, I did appreciate.
It was fun to really get to know all that this bridge has seen, and to later learn that this is a real bridge, that we can visit in person when travel allows.
The part of this book that I struggled with the most was not a commentary on the book, but on the (unfortunately true) history that it chronicles, and yet, that history is very important for us all to understand. The methods of killing and of 'sending messages' from authoritarian regimes during the Ottoman empire were especially gruesome, and this book really gives us a front row seat to displaying the heads of victims on sticks and other similar types of wartime torture that this region horrifically experienced over the past several hundreds of years.
I am glad that I understand what happened to the people of this area; I am happy that I was able to learn about the beauty and resilience of those who have been through so much in this region; and it feels good to have read such an important book by such a talented writer, but this is personally not the type of book I would choose to read again if I were not pursuing this type of project.
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