Two books in one in a flip dos-à-dos format: The story of Aleksandar Hemon's parents' immigration from Sarajevo to Canada and a book of short memories of the author's family, friends, and childhood in Sarajevo
In My Parents, Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his parents' immigration from Bosnia to Canada-of the lives that were upended in the Siege of Sarajevo and the new lives his parents were forced to build. As ever with his work, he portrays both the perfect, intimate details (his mother's lonely upbringing, his father's fanatical beekeeping) and a sweeping, heartbreaking history of his native country, from the rule of Otto von Bismarck to the massacres that shocked the world. It is a story full of many Hemons, of course-his parents, sister, uncles, cousins-and also of German occupying forces, Yugoslav communist revolutionary partisans, royalist Serb collaborators, and a few befuddled Canadians.
My Parents is Hemon at his...
