RaveOrionWhen a writer works from the heart, he or she invites readers into a communion. In the autobiographical novel My Heart, the Bosnian writer Semezdin Mehmedinović offers us an opportunity for fellowship with his beloved family. He works within his text like a stonemason, assembling small narrative fragments into cairns that outline a heartfelt landscape ... With masterful craft, Mehmedinović assembles his mosaic, tight enough to tell the tales yet loose enough to contain the diversity of his thought ... His descriptions of the love shared between husband and wife are profound ... Too often, we are glib about the power of love. We want to think of it as a romantic notion of idyll and pleasure. In the abstract, it is an easy thing to honor. Mehmedinović brings us back to Earth, reminding us that it’s not ethereal; love is an essential element of the life system.
