Ratovi U Našim Životima

by Izet Sarajlić

Marko Bašić je preturio preko glave

dva balkanska i dva svjetska rata.

Ovo mu je peti.

Meni i mom pokoljenju—drugi.

A za Vladimira

s njegovih osamnaest mjeseci

u ovom trenutku mogli bi se reći

da je čak polovicu svog života

proveo u ratu.

by Izet Sarajlić

Marko Bašić is in over his head

with two Balkan and two World wars.

This is his fifth.

Me and my generation—the second.

Even for Vladimir,

at eighteen months old,

in this moment one can say

half his life

has been carried out in war.

translated from Bosnian by Sara Nović

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Izet “Kiko” Sarajlić (1930-2002) was born in Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina to an underage mother and a railway worker father. He moved to Sarajevo at the age of fifteen, and published his first published his first collection, “U Sustretu” (In a Meeting), at age nineteen. Sarajlić went on to become the one of the former Yugoslavia’s most renowned poets, producing over thirty books of poetry, essays, memoirs and political texts. He also served as a long-time professor at the philosophy college of the University of Sarajevo, and worked to institute Sarajevo Poetry Days, now an international book festival. The following poems are from his 1993 collection “Sarajevska Ratna Zbirka” (Sarajevo War Journal), which he wrote during the first weeks of the siege of Sarajevo. Though he was injured during a shelling that damaged his home, he remained in the city throughout the war. Of the collection Sarajlić has been quoted as saying, “this is the only book which I can say I would have loved never to have written.”

Sara Nović studied in the MFA at Columbia University in New York City, with dual concentrations in fiction and literary translation. She is currently a teaching fellow and instructor of undergraduate writing. Her fiction is forthcoming in the 2013 Minnesota Review.

Circumference

Poetry in Translation

Ratovi U Našim Životima