Writer, playwright and travel journalist, Sasa Stanisic was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1978. In 1992, after the outbreak of the Bosnian War, his family fled to Southern Germany. Stanisic, then 14, brimming with talent learned German well enough to write some impressive novels and audio plays. He went on to achieve world-wide appreciation for his works, in particular his riveting novel “How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone”, which was nominated for the German Talking Book Prize, and the rights of which went on to be sold to more than 30 countries.
Semi-autobiographical in nature, the novel is an account of 14-year-old Aleksandar Krsmanovic who is witness to the Balkan wars and whose family, like that of Stanisic's, flees to Germany for refuge. Using flashback, Aleksandar recounts his childhood during the war days — his memories of his hometown and its people, his interesting family. Young Aleksandar finds escape from the torment of war through his imagination, using which he spins yarns and stories that both endear and captivate.
Stanisic was in the city recently to discuss his novel with panellists Arul Mani and Etienne Rassendren. The observations made at the discussion were a revelation — the unique narrative employed by Stanisic to express the psychological and emotional impact war has on ordinary lives and how daily life becomes more of a heightened state of existence.
Mani made a keen observation that fiction dares to look at history in a different way that would otherwise not find mention in the traditional, often narrow, way in which history is recorded. Rassendren spoke about how there being no conclusion to Aleksandar's story, and the reader being left to guess what is true and unreal about the stories told by the protagonist, makes the novel interesting.
Stanisic explained that he chose to write his novel using either a foreigner or a child as narrator, in order to give an angled perspective on the Bosnian War. He used writing about the War through the eyes of a child growing up in a Serb family because he is both close as well as distant from the happenings around him. “Naivety seemed a powerful tool for narration because it adds an element of mystery, of otherness to the story,” explains the writer who speaks impeccable English.
What struck the most was Stanisic's use of simple language that effectively portrays the imagination of a child and his many wishes, dreams and likes. As for the unique title of the novel, Stanisic explains:
“There is a scene in the book where a soldier, a friend of Aleksandar's uncle Miki, is dancing to a record being played on the gramophone. The gramophone suddenly stops playing. And the soldier, who is also drunk, puts a pistol in the trumpet threatening it to play. Aleksandar can't bear to see the gramophone destroyed and so, in his childish story, he recounts that the gramophone immediately starts playing out of fear.”
