About the Work

by Samantha Farmer

“Hasan, Son of Husein,” which Miroslav Krleža called “one of the best things we [Yugoslavs] have written,” adopts a measured pace, but there are many references and resonances bubbling under the surface. In Hasan, one sees glimmers of Scheherazade, Ottoman meddah performers, or Jesus of Nazareth, as well as of ascetic mendicants and fakirs. Hasan’s family comes from Akova, a former Turkish name for Sijarić’s hometown of Bijelo Polje, whence also hailed Avdo Međedović, an oral poet and gusle player whose virtuosic performances were recorded in 1935 by Albert Lord and Milman Perry. The “third kind” of story that Hasan composes by interweaving truth and fiction frequently returns to the history of Sarajevo as a framing narrative. Even the period of unrest from 1747-1757, allegedly due to harsh treatment of the poor, is obliquely mentioned; in 1757 the Morić brothers and supporters were strangled in the Bijela Tabija (“White Fortress”), a cannon fired to make the consequences of revolt clear. The resulting stories are a chronicle of Sarajevo’s commoners who, in light of this cannon’s loud reminders, might at least enjoy life’s pleasures.

“Hasan, Son of Husein” can also be read as a critique of the market. At first, the narrator only goes to the Kolobara Han—erected in 1462 as a center of trade for the new city—to drink tea and observe the business of the čaršija. He is bothered by the uselessness of a man like Hasan, and reluctant to show affection when it is not clear such treatment is warranted. Conversely, Hasan is ignorant of productivity and hierarchy. His stories render merchants into zombies and stall the elaborately prepared dinner of his wealthy host, subverting the gendered division of the domestic space by drawing women out of the kitchen. Moreover, the narrator’s contact with Hasan is a transformative experience by which he becomes similarly solitary and uninterested in “buying and selling”: he first regards Hasan contemptuously, then yearns to sit closer to him, but this physical closeness is foreclosed by Hasan’s death. The narrator can only summon a version of Hasan by telling this story about him, and thereby becoming even more like him.

Several words in the source text have been retained in my translation. These are loanwords of Arabic, Persian, or Turkish origin culturally and linguistically associated with the Ottoman period that, in the Serbo-Croatian, are marked as Bosnian and thus add semantic texture: sećija (low-set sofa), han (inn or caravanserai), sofra (a table set for dining), čaršija (market or bazaar). Sijarić’s idiosyncratic use of punctuation—particularly of em dashes—has also been preserved. Considering his own documented skill in live storytelling, one wonders if such punctuation lends the text to being read aloud; the reader is encouraged to find out for themselves. My thanks go to Olana Sijarić, Ališer Sijarić, and Faruk Dizdarević for their assistance with rights, Sibelan Forrester for comments on an early draft, and Sabrina Jaszi, Mirgul Kali, and Ena Selimović for contributions to the final version.

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Ćamil Sijarić was a Yugoslav writer of prose and poetry born in 1913 near the town of Bijelo Polje in the Sandžak region, a historically Ottoman province that today lies at the intersection of Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania. His 1956 debut novel Bihorci won the Narodna Prosvjeta award for best Yugoslav novel and his 1976 novel Carska vojska (Imperial Army) was a finalist for the NIN Award. Like his contemporaries Ivo Andrić and Meša Selimović, Sijarić’s works are often set in the Ottoman era, while the prevalence of folklore and a uniquely Balkan hauntology evokes the poetry of Mak Dizdar and Vasko Popa. In 1989, he died in a traffic accident in Sarajevo. Only his story “Neither a Church nor a Mosque” has been translated into English (by Amila Buturović in 1996).

Samantha Farmer is a translator of Serbo-Croatian based in Michigan, where they are a doctoral student of Slavic Languages & Literatures researching postsocialist queer literature and comparative proletarian fiction. Their translations can be found in TROIKA, Asymptote, Zenithism (1921–1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology, and Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation.


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