Death in the Museum of Modern Art

"Lazarevska's intelligence and imagination in 'Death in the Museum of Modern Art' make it a brilliant, engaging work of fiction." Aleksandar Hemon "I say that one writer is already great, and if not [already] great, will be great - Alma Lazarevska - With a few metaphors, tremendously powerful ones, she says it all - " Abdulah Sidran, novelist. "Lazarevska's deceptively simple and spare style is perfectly suited to the un-showy, non-indignant gradual reveal of horrors. The translation by Celia Hawkesworth closely captures the delicate nuances of the original: nearly every sentence is imbued with double meaning, so much is left unsaid. There is a poetic silence between sentences, between trains of thought, mimicking perhaps the silence after mortar attacks. The stories will reward close reading or, better still, close re-reading. Death may be the first word in its title, but the book is really about the triumph of life." Necessary Fiction, reviewed by Marina Sofia "This is an important collection of stories, the tales from a part of the world that we rarely see literature translated, taking place during an important time in world history. This year we had Hassan Blasim's "The Iraqi Christ" taking out the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize with Judge Boyd Tonkin saying, "a decade after the Western invasion and occupation of Iraq, that country's writers are exploring the brutal and chaotic aftermath of war and tyranny with ever-growing confidence." Similarly in this work of short stories, we have Alma Lazarevska using "fearless candour and rule-busting artistry", slightly surreal, slightly cryptic but with the siege of Sarajevo always bubbling in the background." Review from Messenger's Booker (and more)