Return

Safet, Amela, Bruno, Azer and Slobodan are all Bosnians. Of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, they’re all leading the same, sad refugee life. Because of the war, or, as one of them says, “because of the wrong name,” they have had to leave behind houses, memories, friends and all the other small things of which life is made. They want them back. Trapped in a maze of bureaucracy and lost in transition in a country where people believe laughing too loud must end in tears, they are searching for a reason to continue with their lives.

“Povratak”, which means “Return”, is a new novel by the Sarajevo-based writer Snjezana Mulic, who spent most of her earlier professional career as a journalist, during which time she became well known for writing reportage. As a fiction writer, she knows to play with words to capture a moment almost photographically. It is as if the reader can see the pictures coming out of her stories. She employs that same skill in this book, in which she follows the steps of five people, all trying to return home.