| Sarabande by Marcus Fedder |
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| Books - Fiction | |||
| Written by Joe Bodia | |||
Sarabande is a gripping love story in which the ties of family and homeland conflict with the desire to forge a new life and direction, which Lord Ashdown, the former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina called "… a most poignant and sad tale which is evocative, moving and well written. It sums up so well so many of the experiences of our many Bosnian friends who suffered so much in the war and especially in Sarajevo."
This brutal war does not allow for forgetting, and she finds herself, despite everything she is working for, unable to escape her past and the consequences of her country's history. The movie script style of the writing is a unique style that makes the scenes easily visualized and plants the reader firmly in the forefront of the action, with storytelling bringing out important issues about the consequences of war, in a time that is filled with wars that have ripped apart the Middle East. By cleverly blending personal and universal concerns, Marcus creates the ultimate love story that one reviewer concludes “is one of those books that gets under your skin, finds its way into your subconscious, and stays there.” Whilst working for the EBRD, Marcus felt inspired to write a book about the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was shocked by the fact that in the middle of Europe, an hour's flight from Vienna, a situation which everyone thought would never again occur on European soil existed again: Genocide, concentration camps and hostage taking of a whole city. This unbelievable revisiting upon European soil of the horrors of WWII sparked an interest to tell the human costs of the conflict beyond the sensationalist headlines that numb us to the human cost. A well-written and engaging read, made much more poignant when read in an age of relative peace.
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Sarabande tells the tale of Janna, a young doctor working in London in 1992 who becomes increasingly involved with investment banker Dan, but struggles to maintain her strict pacifist views whilst war unfolds in her native Sarajevo, where her family and childhood friends are in serious danger. 
