Bosnia and Herzegovina / All works
Poetry
Stone Sleeper
Kameni spavač
Mak Dizdar · 1966
Synopsis
The collection gives voice to medieval Bosnia, drawing on the brief inscriptions and figures carved on the stećci, the stone tombs that dot the country. In the tone of a ballad, like a singer of myths, the poet evokes the Bosnia of the Patarenes, the tragic fate of its men, a love outside time, faith and doubt. The messages of the stones are only a starting point: they open onto death, onto life as a passage between the tomb and the stars, onto the homeland and each person's place in history.
Context
Published in 1966 in Sarajevo by Veselin Masleša, then completed up to 1971, the book marks the summit of its author's work. It draws on the Bosnian Christianity of the pre-Ottoman period, on the maxims of heterodox Muslim mystics and on the vernacular language of the fifteenth century; the elliptical verse, the narrative and gnomic style, nourished by archaisms, popular prayers, laments and magic formulas, keep the echo of oral poetry. Together with a collection of 1971, it is regarded as the most important achievement of twentieth-century Bosnian poetry, and it also appears in anthologies of Croatian poetry.
Who it is for
For readers who like brief, solemn poetry, nourished by tombstones, prayers and legends.
Prizes and reception
Translated into German as early as 1975, then into English, it is regarded as the masterpiece of modern Bosnian letters.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.