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    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
    Ebook353 pages6 hours

    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

    By Sasa Stanisic and Anthea Bell

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “A brilliant debut novel” about a young Bosnian War refugee who finds the secret to survival in language and stories (Los Angeles Times).
     
    For Aleksandar Krsmanović, Grandpa Slavko’s stories endow life in Višegrad with a kaleidoscopic brilliance. Neighbors, friends, and family past and present take on a mythic quality; the River Drina courses through town like the pulse of life itself. So when his grandfather dies suddenly, Aleksandar promises to carry on the tradition. But then soldiers invade Višegrad—a town previously unconscious of racial and religious divides—and it’s no longer important that Aleksandar is the best magician in the nonaligned states; suddenly it is important to have the right last name and to convince the soldiers that Asija, the Muslim girl who turns up in his apartment building, is his sister.
     
    Alive with the magic of childhood, the surreality of war and exile, and the power of language, every page of this glittering novel thrums with the joy of storytelling.
     
    “Wildly inventive.” —San Francisco Chronicle
     
    “Poignant and hauntingly beautiful.” —The Village Voice
     
    “A funny, heartbreaking, beautifully written novel.” —The Seattle Times
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMay 26, 2009
    ISBN9781555848798
    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
    Author

    Sasa Stanisic

    The award-winning novelist Saša Stanišic was born in Višegrad, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1978 and has lived in Germany since 1992. His debut novel How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone was acclaimed by readers and critics alike, and has been translated into 30 languages so far. Before the Feast, his second novel, won the 2014 Leipzig Book Fair Prize, was longlisted for the German Book Prize, and won the Alfred-Döblin and Hohenemser literary prizes.

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    Reviews for How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

    4/5

    102 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book deserves four-and-a-half stars. It was that good. Just really, really good. Aleksandar is the main character here, growing up in the years just prior to and then during the Yugoslav Wars which began in 1991. The story traces his formative years amidst warfare and includes arcs involving his friends, relatives, and neighbors. The second part of the book details how Aleksandar went about finding what had happened to the same characters we met in the first part.

      I loved best the earlier bits where Aleksandar was a child, and viewing events from a child's perspective. His logic processes and lack of comprehension of permanence is endearing as told by Stanisic.
    • 5/5
      Was habe ich mich mit diesem Hörbuch geplagt. Nicht, weil es nicht gut ist - ganz im Gegenteil. Es ist hervorragend, und gerade deshalb nicht zum Nebenbeihören geeignet.
      Saša Stanišic lässt in einer wundervollen bildhaften Sprache den kleinen und großen Aleksandar von dessen Leben erzählen: Wie er aufwächst im alten Jugoslawien, man gemeinsam ungeachtet der Herkunft rauschende Feste feiert, wie dann der Krieg auch Višegrad, seine Heimatstadt erreicht, die Familie nach Deutschland flieht und Aleksandar als junger Mann zurückkehrt mit der Hoffnung, noch etwas von seinen Erinnerungen wiederzufinden. Es sind wahre, halbwahre und Phantasiegeschichten die hier berichtet werden, und in jeder einzelnen empfindet man die große Liebe zu seiner Heimat, den Menschen und den Orten. Was 'Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert' jedoch so besonders macht, sind die ausdrucksvollen Wort- und Satzkunstwerke, mit denen Aleksandar seine Erlebnisse erzählt: 'Meine Tante spricht eine deutsche Autobahn schnell.' oder '..man müsste einen ehrlichen Hobel erfinden, der von den Geschichten die Lügen abraspeln kann und von den Erinnerungen den Trug. Ich bin ein Spänesammler.' Hört man nicht konzentriert zu, entgeht einem vieles.
      Ebenfalls bemerkenswert ist der genaue Blick des Autors für das Absurde und Komische, den er selbst in Situationen nicht verliert, in denen es eigentlich nichts zu lachen gibt. Man ist entsetzt über die Grausamkeit dieses Krieges und kann sich ein Schmunzeln während des Zuhörens dennoch nicht verkneifen.
      Das Alles wird vorgetragen von Saša Stanišic selbst und ich bin mir sicher, niemand anders hätte es besser machen können. Er trägt Aleksandars Geschichte nicht nur vor, nein, er selbst ist Aleksandar, so überzeugend ist seine Lesung. Ich bin mir sicher, dass das Buch nicht besser sein kann, aber - da es noch einige Geschichten mehr enthält, habe ich es mir nun auch noch gekauft. Ich freu' mich schon drauf!
    • 3/5
      This is beautiful writing. Stanišić's great love for Yugoslavia shines and of course it makes me reflect sadly on what was lost. However, I think the narrative skipped around way too much. Sometimes I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. I liked the first half of the book much better than the second.

    Book preview

    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone - Sasa Stanisic

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