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Steven Galloway at the Library
Note: this post was originally written in mid-January. The event is past.
On Saturday (Jan. 17), please join us in the Fireplace Lounge at the Whistler Public Library for an evening with Steven Galloway. His novel The Cellist of Sarajevo is an international bestseller and was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2008. This is the B.C. author's third novel, after Finnie Walsh (2000) and Ascension (2003). He has taught creative writing at UBC and at the Writer's Studio at SFU.
Galloway's work is not without controversy. It has been widely praised and well reviewed all over the world. "Though the setting is the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, this gripping novel transcends time and place. It is a universal story, and a testimony to the struggle to find meaning, grace, and humanity, even amid the most unimaginable horrors," wrote Khaled Hosseini; Yann Martel called it "A grand and powerful novel about how people retain or reclaim their humanity when they are under extreme duress" and chose the book for www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca. However, the cellist of the book's title is not happy about the work. Though his name is never mentioned, the musician played in the rubble of the city to honour 22 bomb victims. Quoted in The Times of London, Vedran Smailovic says he was never contacted about the novel.
What is fiction? Galloway used real events as the foundation for his book, but the cellist himself is a minor character. All fiction is "made up," but the story must be grounded in some comprehensible reality so that we can understand it and relate to it. The main characters and storyline of
The Cellist of Sarajevo are fictional, bringing the horror of the Bosnian war into the reader's world. The war and Smailovic's brave acts of artistic expression in the ruins were the inspiration.
It's a very complicated issue, but the power of the novel itself has never been disputed. Galloway is one of BC's best young writers, and the reading on Saturday should be fascinating. The event is sponsored by the Whistler Public Library and the British Columbia Writers in Libraries grant program. Please note that this is a reading by Steven Galloway alone, and not to be confused with the Vicious Circle's program on Feb. 18. I suggest you go to both! If you have any questions, please contact Nadine White at (604) 935-8433 or nwhite@whistlerlibrary.ca.
Lauren Stara, Library Director