The contribution of partizanke, or female partisan fighters, to the Yugoslav liberation war was unprecedented in occupied Europe: official statistics of the socialist period report 100,000 women fighting as partisans, and two million participating in various ways to the support of the National Liberation Movement. Approximately 25,000 women died in battle, 40,000 were wounded, and 2,000 of them acquired […]
First publication Why does the white mouse grant luck? I have found out. And I’ll tell you. When you are born, life deals you a hand. Better or worse. You are born a healthy or sick baby, small or large, rich or poor, white or a bit darker. That’s how it works. If your parents are wealthy or at least […]
We come from a land of misfortune where literature, art and music are not needed Apart from woeful folk poetry, now and then a verse like an anemic decoration for national tyrants So our poems do not have the expected charm nor attractiveness, nor spleen. Not even the sound of melancholy from the rain drumming on the roof We have […]
The planet that has lost its soul and mind Writes about its end, which is to be On December 21, 2012. But that, unfortunately, will not happen. Yet still, this world must end sometime When all people will disappear in fire or ice, All living things, animals and plants And there won’t be any Noah’s Ark. All books will turn […]
Never say things can’t be worse They can Never say things were never worse They were If people didn’t reach the peak of the hill they touched the bottom of the abyss Where what has befallen you is a bagatelle Chocolate calls for raspberries pick them The homeland calls for sons bear them Your lover longs for shackles forge them […]
Health-giving sounds of wind and waves with a lovely view of Lake Ontario and the nuclear plant in Oswego. In the distance it looks like a steamboat that leaves behind its smoke signals that imperceptibly merge into the herd of clouds. I lie motionless, highly productive. Excellent working conditions in deep shade; beneath the spreading branches of a maple, I […]
“Nowhere else than in America do they pay so well for reading poems.” wrote Miłosz in his poem “Texas.” The next line, “Next to my signature I put the date 2000.” scarcely seems needed since the first one sounds so timeless. Yet my modest experience doesn’t fit that, and I’m unsure what “the Poor B.B.” would have said, while the […]
Everything is just like this photograph — cloudy. Fogs are frequent here, pictures fogged up. Before my impressions take shape, and words fit together, the fog lifts and broadens my horizons. Everything is just like this photograph, only one doesn’t hear the flapping of wings of the flock that flies away past the lens. But the sound has slipped under […]
December 5, 2025 Submitted to the House Foreign Affairs Committee (the “Committee”) Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to submit this statement for the record in response to several points raised during the Committee’s December 2, 2025 Western Balkans Hearing (the “Hearing”), particularly those presented by Mr. Max Primorac. While we appreciate the […]
Among contemporary Bosnian writers whose biography and literary work had been indelibly marked by the 1992-1995 war of independence, Sarajevo-born author Karim Zaimović (1971-1995) is without any doubt one of the most representative, considering his tragic fate and the peculiarities of his narrative production. The son of famed painter Muhamed (1938-2011) Karim was among Sarajevo’s leading young intellectuals during the […]
My little boy Mile was thirteen, Đuro fourteen, Anka twelve, Boško eight, Uroš nine, Dragutin three, and Milutin barely one, when the house burned. Later Mile and Đuro did not come back. Neither did their father, my man, come back from that village of Jasen by the Sava. I immediately recognised the voice of this one. Instantly, although it was […]
Father would often take me to the movies. He enjoyed watching films, so he used to take me with him. Only in college did I realize that I was different, that I was of the Yugoslav origin. Of the Yugoslav or Serbo-Croatian origin – something like that. Bota, my father, took great pride in it. Since my childhood days, he […]
As we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide it is important to reflect on the crucial support that the UN General Assembly’s Resolution designating July 11 as an “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica” provides for the Mothers of Srebrenica and other Srebrenica survivors. This historic UN Resolution, which was adopted due […]
Unique and unparalleled, diversified and unusual, the world of old Tuzla was certainly the result of the historical context that generated it, during the succession of different empires. The common Old Slavic descent of the original state of Bosnia was followed by the specific circumstances in the Turkish Empire and the spread of Islam, which left a special mark on […]
The day was mild say eyewitnesses when a white cloud rose toward the sky First all the Stations of the Cross unwillingly soared up toward the heavens With Jesus in the rear as usual bearing his own cross Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows covered her eyes With a lily in his teeth Saint Anthony looked for the forgotten young […]
When children from Bosnia ascend to Allah falling asleep peacefully in Christ they don’t need a passport any more A black stamp suffices at all border crossings They quickly learn Happiness is Kitsch Antique furniture, Wiehler gobelins with a field of poppies make quite a nice bonfire A proof of existence cogito ergo sum Salt manufacturing in Bosnia is done […]
Stars don’t exist to beautify our nighttime sky They are black coals, remnants of matter that didn’t spare itself they burned up in their own fire and they now live only when light falls on them – the light of other bodies that also burn up unstintingly Thus if we too selflessly burn to the end the glow of others’ […]
Of a hundred inventions and brilliant discoveries, we profit most from the export of ropes for hanging. We satisfy charming tyrants with toys of terror, and these feathers of freedom with which we adorn ourselves were plucked live from the wings of the oppressed birds of the Archipelago of Cancer. We raise our voices occasionally, but faced with overstuffed meat […]
Truths are untenable! We cheered, like at the dog races, for the lies that barked the fiercest. My brother denounced the neighbor’s fat cow for ruminating marijuana. For the sake of future betrayal, we all, like little Jesuses, dragged the cross of hammer and sickle on our backs. And, truly, when the iron curtain, like a shower curtain, came unhooked, […]
The leeches of the military industry crave fresh blood. Directors do not read poetry. There’s no reason – their children won’t go to the trenches. Their servants, the party leaders, take care of it all. They don’t read poetry either. No need! They rule by the magic of fear, and no one will object to taking from schools or cutting […]