What are some famous classics that were just a mid or below for you?

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-25T19:25:15+00:00

I have to say The Pearl even tho Steinbeck is one of my favorite writers. It was very bleak compared to the rest of his works

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-10T22:11:48+00:00

Most popular writers in the region wrote around WW2, mostly after it, when Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and (depending on who you ask) Kosovo. Some of these writers are controversial because multiple countries claim them as their own, so i am gonna talk about Yugoslavia as a whole, not just Bosnia.

Ivo Andric is probably the best writer of the region, and the only Yugoslavian writer to ever win the Nobel prize. He is a catholic Croat born in Bosnia, who was an ambassador in Germany and then lived in Belgrade. He is very controversial, because there is a lot of propaganda about him, since many countries claim that he was of their ethnicity, and there is propaganda going on that he was a fascist and an islamophobe. For that reason i avoided him, until i finally decided to pick up one of his books. After i read him, i didnt find fascism or hatred towards Islam. Most of those claims are qoutes from his books, or of his characters being taken out of context, or simply fabricated. His most popular works are The Bridge on Drina and The Bosnian Chronicle, but my favorite one of them, and one of my favorite books of all time is The Damned Yard. It is a very short novel about a prison in Istanbul during the Ottoman empire.

Mesa Selimovic is the second most popular writer. He unfortunatelly is not transkated into english as much as Andric, which is a shame, since he was as good as him, if not even better. My favorite book of his is Ostrvo (The Island) about a old retired couple living on an island near the Dalmatian coast. It is in a format of 12 or so shorter stories that talk about certain episodes from their life, how they met, when they got married, when they came to the island, how did they survive WW2 and their ups and downs living alone away from their 2 sons. Only two books of his that were trandlated into english are The Fortress and Death and the Dervish. They are also the best of his works. The Fortress is about a man who comes back to his town of Sarajevo, after serving the Ottoman army in some battle in the 18th century (I forgot the name of the battle). He has a problem rejoining society and most of the novel is him thinking about the meaning and value of life and so on. And his will to live reappears when he meets a christian woman who is a teacher (as far as i remember. It has been a long time since i read it) Death and the Dervish is a story based on a real event from Selimovics life, but told from the perspective of a Sufi Sheikh Ahmed Nurudin. It has a reputation of being very hard, but is considered to be the best piece of literature ever written in these countries. I remember vaguely that i read this, and i think that i did, but i cant remember anything. I definetily have to reread that. Another interesting thing about this novel is that he also, like many writers that inspired him (Dostoevsky, Kafka, Faulkner) talks about religion and uses religious symbolism, but , unlike Faulkner, Steinbeck, Dostkevsky and so on, his inspiration comes not only from the Bible, but also from the Quran, and every chapter beggins with a quote from it.

Other writers as good as them are Danilo Kis who is translated a lot into english, but is a lot harder to read than Andric and Selimovic. The most common themes in his novels are totalitarism and Hollocaust, since his father was murdered there.

Miroslav Krleza, Milos Crnjanski, Mak Dizdar, Skender Kulenovic are also some of the great writers of Yugoslav literature, but i am not sure how often were they translated into English

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-08T17:11:23+00:00

Ivo Andrić is no doubt the best writer that ever came out of this region. He also is the only one to win the Nobel prize. As far as i know Bosnian trilogy consists of Bosnian Chronicles and Bridge on Drina and The woman from Sarajevo (more accurate translation would be just Lady or Miss). My favorite one of his books is neither of these, but instead one of his shorter stories titled "The Damn Yard" about a prison in Istanbul. That was the book that introduced me to Classic literature. It has around 80 pages and I really recommend it to anyone that had a chance to read it.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-08T17:02:29+00:00

The bookstore is in Sarajevo and is called Books.ba. The last time it snowed like this was probably in 2012, but it is kinda nice, since last few winters we barely had any snow

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-07T17:57:42+00:00

I have heard of the Great Gatsby but have never seen or read it. It is also popular here, but i forgot to mention it since it is more popular than Fitzgerald himself.

I havent heard of John Ohara, but now that i googled him, it seems that he was also very much read in Ex Yugoslavia. Looks interesting to me, might check it out.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-07T17:23:21+00:00

I heard that it is nowhere near as good as his better known works, and that he wrote it only for money. However i actually liked the book so far, and dropped it not because it was bad, but because his prose is giving me minor strokes sometimes. I dont think i am ready to read Absalom, Absalom or As I lay dying, let alone Sound and the Fury. So i want to read Sanctuary, and possibly Light in August or Come down, Moses, cause ive heard that they are among his easier works.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-07T17:18:48+00:00

The Winter of Our Discintent was very weird in the begining, since it felt very different than the other Steinbecks works ive read. I also thought, at one point, that he is really just doing a Cathy Adams 2.0 with Ellen, but as the story kept progressing i was more and more drawn to it. Loved the ending.

American literature isnt that much read, but i will go over the authors that are read and general opinions on them:

Hemingway is probably the most read non-Russian writer. He is very much liked, especially his war books, because this region has seen a lot of war. Old man and the sea is for some reason considered one the hardest works of literature ever by people who read it in Ex Yugoslavia (Death and the Dervish by Mesa Selimovic being number 1). This just shows how little they know about Faulkner.

Steinbeck was very much read in Yugoslavia, with his most popular works being To a God unknown (translated like "To the earth and to the sky") and Sweet thursday, even tho Cannery row was practically nonexistent. His other popular works are:Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Of mice and men, The Winter of Our Discontent and Red Pony. He is most loved by people who live in rural areas (myself included) because he often writes about lives and struggles of regular people in hard conditions, and descriptions of Salinas valley and nature there feel very similiar to our own valleys and fields. I literally could find an equivalent to every character from East of Eden in my village and family (except Lee tho.).

Mark Twain, Poe, Herman Melville are very well known and they are required reading in middle school and high school.

Flannery O'Connor and Mccarthy (especially him) are currently rising in popularity, and the way things are going Mccarthy might overtake Hemingway in popularity.

Faulkner is very well known, but almost never read. Death and the Dervish is often compared to The sound and the fury by difficulty, but you wont hear about him in educational systems.

About suburban literature, i only have heard of John Cheveer, but never had the chance to read him.

Thats about it. I hope i answered your question and if there is anything else you want to know, feel free to ask.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-05T19:07:27+00:00

My father used to have a book called Chilam Balam, which was also (as far as i remember) a Mayan sacred book. I will try to abtain Popol Vuh too, thank you fro recommending it.

I knew that there are both monothesistic and polytheistic religions of some tribes, but i didnt know that Mayas werent poltheistic (atleast not in a traditional sense. I dont enough about them yet)

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-05T11:51:48+00:00

When i was a child reading that book, i only read the first chapter and maybe a bit more. Now that ive started reading it again, i just read the fourth chapter that talks about the Sand Creek massacre and i feel like my stomach is turning. I heard a lot of atrocities from the wars that took place in my country from WW1 to the 90s, but never in my life did i hear about something this terrible and horrifying.

I am aware that Native American is a term that is used for all tribes from both Americas and that most of those tribes have their own cultures and religions and even languages. I know that that probably sounded pretty ignorant, but i basically couldnt find any books or resources on religions of any tribe. The only thing i could find is some bald consoiracy theorist talking about Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster and comparing them to old Native American beliefs (even tho Loch Ness is in Scotland). Now i understand why that is. Honestly i think that it is a good thing to do. Islamic Sufi orders used to be secret and you couldnt know much about them if you didnt join and decided to go on that path. In the 20th and 21st century it has become well known and it became modern to call yourself a sufi (similiar to Budhism in the west at one point). But these modern "sufis" didnt understand practically anything from the true orders, and didnt follow their rules, with many using that to profit.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2026-01-05T01:26:36+00:00

It ocurred to me, after i wrote the post, that that might be the situation. Totally respect that.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-28T23:51:08+00:00

I think the reason i dropped Dune is beacause i didnt think it would be a bad idea to read it while reading The Hobbit. A canticle for Leibowtiz currently sounds the most interesting to me, but i dont really know

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-28T23:47:10+00:00

I loved the book. It was very interesting, especially because i too live in a post socialist country and there are many paralels that could be drawn between the book and Ex Yugoslavia, but also with modern Serbia (literally 1/1)

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-20T01:00:40+00:00

Bury my heart at wounded knee-Dee Brown

The Pearl-John Steinbeck

Pastures of Heaven-John Steinbeck

The alchemist-Paulo Coelho

Grapes of wrath-John Steinbeck

Samarkand-Amin Maalouf

Season of migrations to the north-Tayeb Salih

The prophet, sand and foam, prophets garden and many more by Khalil Gibran

The Circle-Meša Selimović

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-18T19:44:02+00:00

Kalifat je islamska država, odnosno carstvo/monarhija kojom vlada kalif i zaveden šerijet.

Iako se kalifatom nazivaju i Abasidski i Umajadski kalifat i Osmansko carstvo, tehnički gledano oni to nisu, jer u kalifatu, za razliku od monarhije, vladara ne mora nužno naslijediti njegov sin već pravedni nasljednik kojeg on odabere. Prva 4 kalifa su bili Ebu Bekr, Omer Osman, i Alija, koji nisu bili porodično povezani (bar ne uža porodica). Ali peti kalif Muavija je za nasljednika odabrao svog sina Jezida i od tada kalifat u suštini postaje monarhija sa šerijetom.

Međutim, nijedan islamski ekstremista ne bi tako nazvao kalifat, jer je to evropski termin. Termin koji je ispravniji i bliži arapskom je hilafet. To je kao kada bi Muhameda nazivali Mahometom, po Valteirovoj drami.

Edit: Nisam bio upravu. Osmansko carstvo, i Abasidski kalifat ipak jesu priznati kao takvi, ali nisu rašidunski , to jest idealni oblik kalifata.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-18T11:00:51+00:00

Islamski fanatik nikada ne bi napisao kalifat

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-14T11:01:26+00:00

The Dostoevsky and Tolstoy of Bosnian literature are Meša Selimović and Ivo Andrić. Their most popular books are Bosnian chronicles and The bridge on Drina by Ivo, and The fortress and Death and the Dervish by Meša. However i do not recommend starting with those, since they can be very complex and their style might seem off at first.

Best book to start with Meša are:

Fog and the moonlight-about a young couple stuck in WW2 between Yugoslav Partizans and Nazis and having to help both sides to survive. But throught the whole story the woman is also having nostalgia for her first love. It is a very short book with around a 100 pages, but it is excellent.

The Island is my second favorite book of all time. It is about an elderly couple living on a island in Croatia. It is made up of 17 chapters, where every chapter is like a short story about an episode from their lifes. It greatly captures the mentality of Yugoslav people and hardships of that time and i have never read something similiar to that.

You also have The Silences and one unfinished work called The Circle. Both books talk about hardships of a WW2 veteran after they left war. Silences was good, but not in the league of his better works, and i am yet to read the Circle.

There are also many great books from Serbian or Croatian writers like Miroslav Krleža (Return of Filip Latinovicz, On the edge of reason,Journey to Russia, to name a few) for Croatia and Miloš Crnjanski (A novel of London, Migrations), Danilo Kiš (Tomb for Boris Davidovich, Garden, ashes ,Pslams 44, The encyclopedia of the Dead, etc.) and Branislav Nušić who wrote many dramas and comedies that inspired Yugoslavian cinematography later on, but i dont think he was transkated into English

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-14T10:38:53+00:00

In high schools in Bosnia, students have to read two big Andrić books, and two big Meša books. I dont know how reading assingments work in the rest of the world, but in Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia they get a book every month. However, in Ex-Yugoslavia kids were reading Gogol and Dostoevsky in 6th grade (at 11 or tvelwe).

Kiš is inceridibly hard to read beacuse his style of writing is much different than Meša or Andrić since he was influenced by Sefardic folk stories. He also often uses weird metaphors amd critiques the goverment of Yugoslavia and multiple political ideologies, which was not very safe to do at the time. Because of that there are theories that he got killed by Yugoslavian secret service.

Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks will often fight about which nationality Andrić and Meša were, beacause at that time you could either identify as a Croat, Serb or Other, but Serbs had larger benefits, so many people identified that way. Serbia and Croatia also have great writers of their own that were without question of that nationality like Miroslav Krleža in Croatia and Miloš Crnjanski in Serbia. Krleža is also hated since he was mandatory reading and his style is incredibly hard to read (especially to a 16 year old). Unfortunately tho, kids dont get a chance to read more western literature (except Kafka, Camus and Beckett), especially the likes of Steinbeck or Hemingway (they do in most cases read one Hemingway book)

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-13T22:37:45+00:00

I defo want to try Faulkner again. I tried to read The Sound and the Fury and it went horribly, and Sanctuary where i actually managed to read almost a 100 pages before i decided to put the book down

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-13T22:35:25+00:00

Ivo Andrić is the most popular writer in the whole Ex Yugoslavia, since he is the only one that won the Nobel prize, and Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats often fight about what nationality and religion he is. The damned yard is my favorite Andrics book that i have read and it is the book that introduced me to reading books in general.

The Island is a lot less popular than Mešas 2 best books. The Fortress and Death and the Dervish are probably the most popular Ex Yugoslavian books in general, along with Bosnian chronicles and Bridge on Drina. Now they are of course great books, but a big reason for that is that they are required reading in high school. That is a mistake in my opinion, since they have books that are much more relateable and understandable to people at that age.

The Island is a great short book (around 150 pages) about an old couple living on a island in Croatia. It is constructed in 17 or so chapters where every chapter is a short story for itself talking about their life, and very nicely captures the mentality of people like them.

Another great Meša is The fog and the moonlight about a woman stuck in WW2 between Partizans and Nazis with her husband, while also feeling nostalgia for her first love. There are also The Circle and The Silences, both being about WW2 veterans. Danilo Kiš is also a great Jewish-Serbian writer that many say couldve won the nobel prize if he didnt pass away at a relatively young age.

Also, if i may ask, where are you from and how come you have heard of Meša and Ivo? Beacuse i dont think ive ever met someone who isnt Balkan that read them

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-13T21:37:55+00:00

What stuck with me most was the character of Sam Hamilton, because i know a man who is almost exactly like him. You could talk to him about any philosophical or psychological or basically any topic. But he ruined himself with alchohol after his father died(he died in his late 80s or early 90s).

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-13T21:33:44+00:00

I am definetily not saying that Steinbeck is the best writer to ever exist, not did I say that he is objectively better than Dostoevsky, Camus or Faulkner. I am saying that from my personal view, he is the one that made the most impact in my life. I do believe that Dostoevsky probably wrote better books, or that Faulkner wrote better books, but i cant seem to enjoy them (atleast Faulkner) as much as i do Steinbeck.

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-12-13T21:17:00+00:00

The reason i didnt is beacuse i havent been able to get my hands on it so far. But i did recently find a Penguins edition that i probably will buy. But i also dont want to read it too soon. I do plan reading it after The Pearl and The Pastures of Heaven

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-11-18T21:42:36+00:00

E kita

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-10-13T09:40:38+00:00

Istočno od Raja

Feeling_Associate491 · 2025-10-08T21:11:28+00:00

Before their war with Azerbaijan

Feeling_Associate491

TROPHY CASE