The Book of My Lives
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ISBN10: 1250043549
ISBN13: 9781250043542
Trade Paperback
256 Pages
$18.00
CA$24.50
A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Aleksandar Hemon's lives begin in Sarajevo, where boyhood is consumed by street soccer and sibling rivalry, and a young man's life is about American music, bad poetry, and slightly better journalism. At the age of twenty-seven, Hemon journeyed to Chicago—a trip that would mark the beginning of another life, this time in the United States. There, he watched from afar as war broke out in Bosnia, his parents and sister fleeing, and Hemon himself unable to return.
Yet this, his first book of nonfiction, is much more than a memoir of these experiences. At once a love song to two cities and a paean to the bonds of family, The Book of My Lives is a singular work of passion, built on fierce intelligence, unspeakable tragedies, and sharp insight. Like the best narratives, it is a book that will leave you a different reader when you finish—and a different person, with a new way of looking at the world.
Reviews
Praise for The Book of My Lives
"Aleksandar Hemon is, quite frankly, the greatest writer of our generation. His literature is deep, agile, funny, graceful, searing, angry, raw, questioning. The Book of My Lives is worth it simply for the dedication: ‘For Isabel, forever breathing on my chest.' He writes it, and so she breathes on ours too. Such is the function of storytelling: to get to the essence of that which might eventually break our hearts. This is a book—like all of Aleksandar Hemon's books—that is an aria for our times. I will cherish it."—Colum McCann
"Incandescent. When your eyes close, the power of Aleksandar Hemon's colossal talent remains."—Junot Díaz
"Aleksandar Hemon's work crackles with so much humor and irony, so much compassion and humanity, that The Book of My Lives's true calling almost goes by unnoticed: it is, without doubt, the most necessary, intimate, and heartbreaking portrait of a world lost to one of history's darkest conflicts."—Téa Obreht
"I'm not quite sure Aleksandar Hemon counts as an American writer, but he is one of my favorite American writers. Before The Book of My Lives, I never really thought of him as a nonfiction person, but this new book—a memoir in essays—has some of his best writing. When Hemon's work is funny, it can make you laugh in spite of everything, and when it is sad, it's hard to stand up afterward."—John Jeremiah Sullivan
"The Book of My Lives is written with the full force of humanity. It will make you think, laugh, cry, and remember yourself. If you've never read Aleksandar Hemon, prepare to have your worldview deepened."—Jonathan Safran Foer
"You should read Aleksandar Hemon's memoir for the same reason you should read his fiction: He is not only a remarkably talented writer but also one of the great social observers, a cultural anthropologist who seems at home everywhere and nowhere and who balances despair with hope, anger with humor."—Benjamin Percy, National Public Radio
"One of the best prose stylists—in any language—at work today . . . and this collection is a compelling argument for his emergence as a vitally important writer."—Edward Hart, Kansas City Star
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
1. WHO IS THAT?
On the evening of March 27, 1969, my father was in Leningrad, USSR, in pursuit of his advanced electrical engineering degree. My mother was at home, in Sarajevo, deep in labor, attended to...
About the author
Aleksandar Hemon
