Under Pressure

Until the outbreak of war in 1992, Faruk Šehić studied veterinary medicine in Zagreb. However, the then 22-year-old voluntarily joined the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which he led a unit of 130 men. After the war he studied literature and has gone on to create his own literary works. Literary critics have hailed Šehić as the leader of the ‘mangled generation’ of writers born in 1970s Yugoslavia, and his books have achieved cult status with readers across the whole region. His debut novel Quiet Flows the Una (Knjiga o Uni, 2011) received the Meša Selimović prize for the best novel published in the region, and also the EU Prize for Literature in 2013. His most recent book is a collection of poetry entitled My Rivers (Moje rijeke, Buybook, 2014). Šehić lives in Sarajevo and works as a columnist and journalist.

'Sehic has composed a humbling meditation on an existential conundrum that is central to collective and private trauma, but also to more ordinary human experience: how to keep the inner self whole in a world that will assault it in unimaginable ways.' Kapka Kassaova, The Guardian (on Quiet Flows the Una); "When I discovered Faruk Sehic, I didn't just see war in his work, I saw life in that war." Nikola Madzirov, poet; "It's been a long while since Bosnian literature has seen such an interesting and fine writer such as Faruk Sehic." Enver Kazaz, editor and critic