Lessons from Sarajevo: A War Stories Primer

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In today’s world, our television screens are filled with scenes from countless conflicts across the globe—commanding our attention and asking us to choose sides. In this insightful and wide-ranging book, Jim Hicks argues that we must understand how the narratives of these conflicts—war stories—are told in order to arm ourselves against them. In a democracy, we are each responsible for policy decisions taken on our behalf. So it is imperative that we gain fluency in the diverse forms of representation (journalism, photography, fiction, memoir, comics, cinema) that bring war to us. Hicks explores the limitations of the sentimental tradition in war representation and asks how the work of artists and writers can help us to move beyond the constraints of that tradition. Ranging from Walt Whitman’s writings on the Civil War to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and focusing on the innovative and creative artistic expressions arising out of the wars of the former Yugoslavia, Hicks examines how war has been perceived, described, and interpreted from numerous perspectives. “Lessons from Sarajevo introduces such a variety of war stories in such vivid terms that almost all readers will find themselves—as I did—heading straight for the Internet to look up films and order books. Hicks has written a book that should stimulate much discussion about a topic that is—unfortunately—not about to go away.” —Michael Rothberg, author of Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization “I found Hicks’s book engaging, provocative, well researched, and incredibly useful. His sense of history is both deeply informed and extremely nuanced. . . . He is quite adept at choosing exemplary moments or texts to concisely and efficiently illustrate complex arguments. . . . This is a book whose claims and arguments deserve attention.” —Ammiel Alcalay, author of After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture JIM HICKS is editor of The Massachusetts Review and teaches comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Cover photo: Modena 1973 — Atlas by Luigi Ghirri UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS Amherst & Boston www.umass.edu/umpress ...