Miljenko Jergović - "The Crazy Heart"

Reading & Talk // Literature: International
Moderation: Petra Nagenkögel
Interpreter: Mascha Dabić

The crazy heart

Sarajevo Marlboro remastered. Stories From the Croatian by Brigitte Döbert 30 years after the publication of his collection of stories Sarajevo Marlboro, which made Miljenko Jergović instantly famous in 1994, he returns to the city in his new work, Das verrückte Herz. Sarajevo Marlboro remastered, he returns to the city in which so much history, religion, war experience and everyday life are concentrated. He tells of daily survival in the siege and the horrors of war, of hunger, fear and the small gestures of solidarity in an affectionate way, full of sadness and humor. The atmosphere of the war years appears as vivid as the fragile, yet indestructible life within it - masterful stories of humanity asserting itself at ground zero. There is Pero Magacioner, for example, the crazy heart. He paints people's apartments in Sarajevo, more badly than well. With the outbreak of war, soon nobody is having their apartments painted, but the demand for roofers increases. The tradesmen no longer wanted to climb up onto the shot-up roofs, but Pero Magacioner climbed up anyway and put them back in order, as well, they say, as he had never done anything else. Shortly before the end of the war, he falls from the roof, just like that, an undeserved death in the midst of all the undeserved deaths in the besieged city, to which Jergović creates a touching memorial. The Crazy Heart is the follow-up and twin volume to Sarajevo Marlboro, with 29 new stories from besieged Sarajevo - translated into German for the first time. Miljenko Jergović, born in Sarajevo in 1966, studied philosophy and sociology at the university there. Jergović reported from besieged Sarajevo, among other places, and was also a television editor there. He has lived as a freelance writer in Zagreb since 1993 and works as a political columnist for various Croatian and international newspapers.

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