Sarajevo
Writing

In Sarajevo the bullet holes in the buildings are from 1995. That is not history here. That is last week.

The wound city · Where East meets West · The most human city in Europe

Sarajevo is the city where, more than anywhere else in Europe, the recent past is physically present. The Sarajevo roses — the mortar shell scars in the pavement filled with red resin to mark where people died — are everywhere in the city centre. The mosques, Orthodox churches, Catholic churches, and synagogues are within walking distance of each other in the old town. Sarajevo was a place where coexistence was not an ideal but a practice, and the siege years are still carried by anyone over forty.

"In the Sarajevo market where 68 people were killed by a single mortar shell in 1994, they sell vegetables on Saturdays. This is not resilience in the inspirational sense. It is just what you do. You sell vegetables. What else would you do."

Tumbleweed Words — Sarajevo

These are the most carefully written pieces in the Tumbleweed Words archive. Sarajevo demands more from a writer than other cities — it demands that you earn the right to say anything at all about it. The flash fiction here is quieter than in other city pieces, more aware of its own limits, more concerned with witness than interpretation.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack.