Quiet Flows the Una is the autobiographical novel of a war veteran. Filled with memory, magic and love of nature, it takes the reader on a journey into the mind of the main protagonist, as he tries to reconcile the horrors of the Bosnian war with his recollections of a childhood spent beside his beloved River Una.
Through poetic, meditative prose, Faruk Šehić attempts to reconstruct the life of a man who is bipolar in nature, being both a veteran and a poet. With the help of his memories, he uses his mind and strength to look for a way out of the maze in which he is confined, acting as both archivist and chronicler of the past – roles that allow him the opportunity to rebuild everything again. In parallel to this story, the book's passages on the city next to the river take on mythical and dream-like dimensions. Here, the novel expands into a poetic description of nature, seasons, flora and fauna, as well as flights of fancy.
Über die Autorin / über den Autor:Faruk Šehić lives in Sarajevo and works as a columnist and journalist. His collection of short stories Under Pressure (Pod pritiskom, 2004) was awarded the Zora Verlag Prize. His debut novel Quiet Flows the Una (Knjiga o Uni, 2011) received the Meša Selimović prize for the best novel published in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia in 2011; and the EU Prize for Literature in 2013. His most recent book is a collection of poetry entitled My Rivers (Moje rijeke, Buybook, 2014)
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