Balkan authors launch novels recalling wartime childhood and a Jewish composer's fate

In Ilijaš, Bosnia and Herzegovina, author Nejra Mekić Korkmaz promoted her novel *Bojanka pod opsadom*. The book recounts a child’s experience growing up during the siege of Sarajevo, aiming to preserve personal and collective memories of the war. The author emphasized that the work “is not only a literary piece but also a testimony of an era, a guardian of memory and a voice of a generation whose childhood was taken by war.”

In Dubrovnik, Croatia, flautist and writer Slavka Jurić presented her debut novel *BAT KOL – Priča o Oskaru Mangeru*. The story blends fact and fiction to follow Jewish composer Oskar Manger through his early life in Trieste, the turmoil of World War II on the Dalmatian islands, and his post‑war existence. Jurić highlighted the novel’s unconventional form, noting that “the structure of the novel is not linear, but circular and meandering,” and used the book to honor the cultural losses of artists murdered in the Holocaust.

Both events underscore a regional effort to confront and memorialize the traumatic histories of the Balkans through literature.