Bosnia and Herzegovina / All works
Novel · A way to begin
The Bridge on the Drina
Na Drini ćuprija
Ivo Andrić · 1945
Synopsis
A Serb child from the Višegrad area, taken from his mother by the Ottoman levy of Christian boys, becomes grand vizier under the name Mehmed Pasha Sokolović and has a bridge built over the Drina, at the place where he was separated from her. Built by serfs between 1566 and 1571, at the price of sabotage and torture, the structure becomes the heart of the town: people sit on its kapia, tell legends there, and Turks, Serbs, Sephardic Jews and Roma face the floods together there. Four centuries pass over the bridge, from the Serbian uprisings to the Austro-Hungarian occupation.
Context
The author wrote this book in Belgrade, under German occupation, where he lived in seclusion after having been ambassador in Berlin, and it appeared in March 1945. More chronicle than novel in the strict sense, it tells of Bosnia, where East and West clashed for centuries, through the stories of the inhabitants of a small town. In 1961 the Nobel jury praised the epic force with which the writer had drawn themes and human destinies from the history of his country; he gave all the prize money to buy books for the libraries of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Who it is for
For those who want to understand Bosnia through four centuries of life around a bridge. Some passages, such as the torture of a saboteur, are extremely violent.
Prizes and reception
The best-known work of a Nobel laureate, the book has been translated into French twice, in 1956 and in 1994.