Stevan Tontić’s Sarajevo Manuscript, written after he fled the Bosnian War, is a haunting account of the breakdown of a shared Yugoslav identity and the devastation of exile. His poetry and essays show the great sadness and confusion of seeing your country being destroyed while trying to stay true to your artistic and intellectual beliefs. The text is full of deep thoughts and ideas, showing how war and being forced to leave your home can cause really bad things to happen to people and communities. Tontić’s work shows how writers can be both witnesses and survivors. They can preserve memory through art while dealing with loss. This is an important way to understand the human cost of displacement and how culture can survive in times of crisis.
Source: https://www.planetlyrik.de/stevan-tontic-handschrift-aus-sarajevo/2019/03/
