Friday 11 December 2009

MELIKA SALIHBEG BOSNAWI


I am hugely privileged to be in touch with this Bosnian poet. I have her book, and she has sent me several pieces via email. This week, we swapped messages again. It is hard to do this. I feel so removed - anything I say cannot even brush the surface of her experience. But I try, and am grateful that I know her a little, and can share a little.
Please visit her website, HERE find out about a writer who records some of the worst moments in modern history, and its continuing fall-out. Read her biography. And like I do, feel humbled that you are a tiny trickle in this river of writing – in which Melika is a torrent.
Pdfs are available on the website. These lines are from the end of a poem about Sarajevo Rose War Rhymes.

A minute of silence for the souls of victims
in remembrance of whom
these War Rhymes,
Bosnian,
came into existence.
To be a living witness of that
living
literature.


Her book Sarajevo Rose is reviewed HERE by Adnan Mahmutovic.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much, Vanessa, for this introduction to Melika. Will now have to investigate further via your helpful links. This is another way we women can get together (albeit without the toast with rhubarb and ginger jam, sadly!) and support each other, and it's wonderful.