First UK edition. "True" first, preceding by a month the U.S. issue. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 230, [2 (blank)], b/w pls., map, footnotes. Burgundy paper-covered cloth, stamped in gilt to spine; scarlet endpapers. Dustjacket praise by Nathan Englander and Amy Tan to rear panel. Reprinted twice prior to publication.
Author's literary debut. A collection of interconnected short stories and a novella, with settings ranging from Chicago to Sarajevo, about love, war, espionage and beekeeping. An elegy for a vanished Yugoslavia by a Sarajevo born writer, resident in Chicago since 1992, for whom English is an acquired language.
In October 2019, Hemon wrote a piece in The New York Times for their Opinion column, criticizing the Swedish Academy for awarding the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Milošević 'apologist', Peter Handke. National Book Award finalist for The Lazarus Project (2008). "Hemon is a maestro, a conjurer, a channeler of universes... As vivid a prose as you will find anywhere this year." –Sven Birkerts, Esquire Magazine