Catalogue > Fiction
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Steven Galloway
This spellbinding novel of a city under siege combines the agonizing moral of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader with the raw emotional power of Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room. It looks set to be once of the must-read novels of 2008.
One man, a cellist, defies this game of ‘Sarajevo Roulette’ in memory of the city’s dead:for 22 consecutive days, he becomes a sitting target as he plays his cello in the street outside his building. Unknown to him, a young woman, Arrow, watches his performances more avidly than any other. For she is the counter-sniper chosen to protect him from the enemy sniper she knows lurks nearby, his gun poised and ready to shoot, close enough she could her him sneeze. Can she keep the cellist alive? And what will it cost her – in body or in soul – to do so?
Tense and heartbreaking to its very last page, The Cellist of Sarajevo shows how life under siege creates impossible moral choices. When the everyday act of crossing the street can risk lives, the human spirit is reveals in all its fortitude – and frailty.
Critical acclaim for Steven Galloway:
‘Galloway has the power to move and astonish, seemingly without sweat or effort.’ Quill & Quire (Canada)
‘Steven Galloway negotiates a mesmerizing line… Rising above all else soars the elegance of the storytelling. Galloway’s balance on the narrative line is a pleasure to experience.’ Vancouver Sun
‘Galloway shows a rare flair for inhabiting minds at moments of exhilaration and peril.’ Gazette (Montreal)
About the author
Steven Galloway is the author of two acclaimed novels, Finnie Walsh and Ascension, which was published in ten countries. The Cellist of Sarajevo is his first novel to be published in the UK. Steven Galloway lives in Vancouver.
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Hardback
Published May 2008
288 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84354 739 6
RRP: £12.99