I remember parts of the war that erupted in the former Yugoslavia.

I remember a Christian and a Muslim, a couple, crawling across No-Man's Land trying to reconnect, and dying in each other's arms.

I remember being amazed that the place that had been the location of the 1984 Winter Olympics, the centre of world attention, could be torn into rubble. That war, which seemed to belong somewhere else, could seem to come so much closer to home.

In some ways those are the themes of The Cellist of Sarajevo. Galloway uses a soft touch and poetic prose to describe a number of ordinary people thrown into an extraordinary situation.

There is the Cellist, unnamed, who decides to play his cello in a square, defiant of snipers, for 22 days, once for each victim of a bomb attack on a bread queue. This evocative scene becomes the central image of the book. Beauty, transcendence, in the midst of chaos. It is based on an actual event, although the real cellist, now living in Ireland, has distanced himself from the book.

There is Arrow, a female sniper, who is trying to make ethical decisions in the midst of the awareness that she is killing human beings. She is trying to pick off the soldiers; but in the end devotes herself to protecting the cellist.

There is Kenan, a family man, dodging bullets in the round trip to the brewery where he can source water for his family and neighbour. On the way he witnesses death and devastation of a city he loves.

Finally there is Dragan, an older guy who managed to get his wife and son out early, and wishes he was with them. Instead he is one of the luckier ones left behind in the besieged city, with a job and access to food.

Each of these characters has the opportunity to make a choice: to move from being victims to being proactive. Those choices take enormous courage, and self-denial.

They are not necessarily stories of sacrifice, but they are stories of redemption and memory, and as such they resonate with the heart of the Gospel.

When all the things that tempt and distract are stripped away, when choices are made simpler and starker, when the depravity of the human heart is laid bare; choosing to remember others, to honour life, acts of dignity, caring for others… these are the things that honour the image of God, that echo his grace, that bring his Kingdom near.

This is a beautiful book, recently re-released, from an author who was chucked out of writing school! I hope many of you get to enjoy it.

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