Born in Višegrad, Bosnia and escaping during its Serbian invasion, Saša Stanišić charts his debut novel as a whimsical child tenderly mindful of the river Drina.

Witness to war and peace, the Drina remains the steadying thread coursing through a tale and territory bloodily torn apart by conflict. From 1989 to 1995, ideological disagreement in former Yugoslavia led to political division and the horrific ethnic cleansing campaigns of Slobodan Milošević. Yet to Aleksandar, his role as family storyteller is to persist despite interruptions. Aleksandar the child puzzles over such absurdities as friends now descending into mutual cruelty and a beloved playmate Asija now deemed an unforgivable ethnicity. As idyllic fishing trips are replaced by a numbing exodus to Germany, Aleksandar the adolescent shifts from narrative to letters. Aleksandar the adult returns to Višegrad, in seach of Asija and writing lists, ‘to compare my memories with here and now’.

Inquires like ‘Who Has the Right Sort of Name’ are sobering twists on Rudyard Kipling themes. Dialogues and perspectives merge into monologue narration, faintly resonant of post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy.