Browsing all posts by Aleksander Hemon
Sarajevo is…
by Aleksander Hemon · 03/21/07
The taxi driver who drove me from the airport and, when I observed that the leaves were already beginning to fall, replied: “Why, yes, first watermelons, then lessons,” which, on close analysis, I understood as representing a magic formula to describe the gradual approach of autumn.
The moment when, from Jekovac, after the Ramazan cannon fires to indicate sunset, you see the lights on all the minarets of Sarajevo simultaneously ignite.
The clatter of the first morning tram, echoing through the empty streets of the city.
The coldness of the buildings from the Austro-Hungarian era and the staircases inside them, with their treads worn by the soles that have climbed them for more than a century.
Somun—soft, white bread—(scattered with seeds) from the baker’s in Kovači.
Children’s balls, rolling in the shallow eddies of the Miljacka river.
The beauty of Sarajevo women, who always bear in them the imprint of their own past and their own future; the history of past and future changes: their faces reveal both skinny little girls and mature women, both minxes and careworn matrons.
The sfumato of a cold Sarajevo morning, before the sun steals up behind the mountains, and mist drifts up the slopes.
Škembići—tripe—at Hadžibajrić’s.
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