Bosnia and Herzegovina / All works
Short stories
Od proljeća do proljeća
Not translated into English
Isak Samokovlija · 1929
Synopsis
This first story collection brings the poor Jews of Sarajevo into literature, those of the mahalas with their winding lanes, where small houses covered with tiles or shingles shelter behind gardens planted with mulberry and linden trees. One meets small craftsmen, porters, day labourers, plain workers, caught in their everyday lives. The critics of the day hailed the first writer to descend into the still unexplored depths of the Jewish soul.
Context
The collection appeared in 1929 from the publishing house of the Sarajevo Writers' Group, two years after a first short story published in Belgrade, that of a poor man who lives on alms. The Jews he writes about are for the most part modest people, and it is from this milieu that the whole body of work arises. Ivo Andrić held the author to be one of the best writers Bosnia has produced, and Meša Selimović placed him, after Andrić, in the front rank of Bosnian storytellers since Kočić. The book was translated into Hebrew in 1982, then into French by Jean Descat in 1999.
Who it is for
For those who want to discover the life of the Sephardic Jews of Sarajevo before the war, told by a storyteller from their own ranks.
Prizes and reception
Regarded in Bosnia as a classic of the short story, the book has been translated into Hebrew and French.
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