A tender and revealing set of stories by the uniquely delicate Bosnian writer, Alma Lazarevska. Avoiding the easy traps of politics and blame, Lazarevska reveals a world full of incidents and worries so similar to our own, and yet always under the shadow of the snipers and the bombs that we know are out there and that occasionally impinge on the story in shocking ways. One of the finest works to have emerged from the tragedy that was the siege of Sarajevo. The Award for "Best Book of 1996" from the Society of Writers of Bosnia and Herzegovina . Translated by the award-winning Celia Hawkesworth (short-listed for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize & winner of the Heldt Prize for Translation, for Dubravka UgreSic's 'The Culture of Lies')