From Nowhere to Nowhere

Overview

A subtle exploration of identity and displacement in post-war Bosnia.

Bekim Sejranovic's From Nowhere to Nowhere follows an unnamed narrator, scattered from his Bosnian hometown during the Yugoslav Wars, as he journeys through Croatia and Norway. He grapples with reclaiming a sense of self that feels perpetually out of reach.

From childhood soccer games on Unity Street to Muslim funerals, interpreting for Balkan refugees, and navigating complex relationships, the narrator's nomadic existence paints a vivid portrait of life lived in constant removal. This poignant novel brilliantly renders the search for belonging in a world fragmented by war and displacement, appealing to readers of literary fiction and those interested in the post-Yugoslav experience. Discover a powerful story of identity displacement and the enduring human spirit.

Reviews

"But along with the rage and remorse is the exile’s vertiginous feeling of absolute freedom, captured in those exhilarating moments when Sejranović "shook off the dust of memory, ruthlessly, like out of an old carpet." " —Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

Author Biography

Will Firth was born in 1965 in Newcastle, Australia. He studied German and Slavic languages in Canberra, Zagreb, and Moscow. Since 1991 he has lived in Berlin, where he works as a translator of literature and the humanities—from Russian, Macedonian, and all variants of the “language with many names,” aka Serbo-Croatian. In 2005–07 he translated for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Firth is a member of professional associations in Germany (VdÜ) and Britain (Translators Association). His best-received translations of recent years have been Aleksandar Gatalica’s The Bekim Sejranovic (1972–2020) was a member of the writers’ associations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Norway. In 2009, he was awarded the Meša Selimovic Prize for the best new novel from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro for Nigdje, niotkuda. In 2011, he was screenplay writer for Japanese director Moku Teraoka’s documentary From Tokyo to the Morava River - A Japanese Meets the Balkans. He lived in Ljubljana from 2011–14, and then lived and worked in Zagreb from 2015 until his untimely death in May 2020.