The Cellist of Sarajevo

It's usually easy to spot heroism in war stories: Look for soldiers on the front lines or acts of valor on the battlefields. However, the terrible beauty of this audiobook lies in its unusual wartime heroes--individuals whose lives are riddled by sniper fire and uncertainty as they traverse worn-torn Sarajevo, carrying out their daily lives. Gareth Armstrong's confident, often reverent, voice animates the story's three characters: Arrow, a sniper; Dragan, a parent trying to keep his family safe; and Kenan, a citizen. The unnamed cellist of the title sits in the middle of the chaos, risking his life to play for the dead. Galloway's poetic prose lends itself well to the audio format, especially as voiced by Armstrong. Its quiet grace is profoundly affecting. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

June 2, 2008
Canadian Galloway (Ascension) delivers a tense and haunting novel following four people trying to survive war-torn Sarajevo. After a mortar attack kills 22 people waiting in line to buy bread, an unnamed cellist vows to play at the point of impact for 22 days. Meanwhile, Arrow, a young woman sniper, picks off soldiers; Kenan makes a dangerous trek to get water for his family; and Dragan, who sent his wife and son out of the city at the start of the war, works at a bakery and trades bread in exchange for shelter. Arrow's assigned to protect the cellist, but when she's eventually ordered to commit a different kind of killing, she must decide who she is and why she kills. Dragan believes he can protect himself through isolation, but that changes when he runs into a friend of his wife's attempting to cross a street targeted by snipers. Kenan is repeatedly challenged by his fear and a cantankerous neighbor. All the while, the cellist continues to play. With wonderfully drawn characters and a stripped-down narrative, Galloway brings to life a distant conflict.

Starred review from May 15, 2010
Canadian author Galloway's third novel, inspired by actual events and first published in 2008, transports listeners into Sarajevo's sniper alleys of the 1990s. After Bosnia and Herzegovina declared their independence from Yugoslavia, Serb forces encircled Sarajevo, besieging the city. In 1992, 22 citizens queuing to buy bread were killed in a mortar attack. A cellist who witnessed that attack from his apartment window defied the snipers and carried his instrument out into the crater in the street, playing Albinoni's Adagio in G minor for 22 days. Galloway's sparse, heartbreakingly beautiful fictionalization of this event is told from the points of view of three Sarajevans struggling to retain their sanity and humanity in the face of the utter madness surrounding them. These perspectives are all brilliantly conveyed through Welsh actor/narrator Gareth Armstrong's ("The Defector") skilled performance. Sold in over 30 countries, this international best seller is an essential addition to all contemporary fiction collections. [The Riverhead hc was described as "making the siege of Sarajevo very real" and was recommended "for most collections," "LJ" 4/15/08.Ed.]Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., Garrettsville, OH

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