Лучшие книги Александра Хемона

Александар Хемон - известный американский писатель боснийского происхождения. Его роман "Проект "Лазарь"" (2008), названный еженедельником Publishers Weekly лучшей книгой года и удостоенный интернациональной премии Яна Михальского, вошел в шорт-листы самых престижных литературных наград Соединенных Штатов 2009 года: National Book Award и National Critics Circle Book Award. Роман переведен на основные европейские языки.
Трагическая история молодого еврейского иммигранта, бежавшего от кишиневских погромов 1900-х годов в Чикаго, столетие спустя захватывает журналиста чикагской газеты, тоже еще "нового" гражданина США. Человеческое горе и тонкий юмор, беззащитность и сила характеров, ранее непонятая глава из истории иммигрантов, реалии современной Америки и охваченной войной бывшей Югославии.
Одна из тех книг, что не отвечает на вопросы, а заставляет их задавать. Самому себе прежде всего.

Love and Obstacles

The Book of My Lives

The mind- and language-bending adventures of Hemon's endearing protagonist Jozef Pronek.

The World and All That It Holds--in all its hilarious, heartbreaking, erotic, philosophical glory--showcases Aleksandar Hemon's celebrated talent at its pinnacle. It is a grand, tender, sweeping story that spans decades and continents.

As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his estimable father. It's not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it's nothing a dash of laudanum from the high shelf, a summer stroll, and idle fantasies about passersby can't put in perspective.

And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto's introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller; Pinto's protector and lover.

Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches, survive near-certain death, tangle with spies and Bolsheviks. Over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another, all the way to Shanghai, it is Pinto's love for Osman--with the occasional opiatic interlude--that keeps him going.

The seriously, seriously funny roller-coaster ride of sex and violence that Aleksandar Hemon has long promised

Script idea #142: Aliens undercover as cabbies abduct the fiancée of the main character, who has to find a way to a remote planet to save her. Title: Love Trek.

Script idea #185: Teenager discovers his girlfriend’s beloved grandfather was a guard in a Nazi death camp. The boy’s grandparents are survivors, but he’s tantalizingly close to achieving deflowerment, so when a Nazi hunter arrives in town in pursuit of Grandpa, he has to distract him long enough to get laid. A riotous Holocaust comedy. Title: The Righteous Love.

Script idea #196: Rock star high out of his mind freaks out during a show, runs offstage, and is lost in streets crowded with his hallucinations. The teenage fan who finds him keeps the rock star for himself for the night. Mishaps and adventures follow. This one could be a musical: Singin’ in the Brain.

Josh Levin is an aspiring screenwriter teaching ESL classes in Chicago. His laptop is full of ideas, but the only one to really take root is Zombie Wars. When Josh comes home to discover his landlord, an unhinged army vet, rifling through his dirty laundry, he decides to move in with his girlfriend, Kimmy. It’s domestic bliss for a moment, but Josh becomes entangled with a student, a Bosnian woman named Ana, whose husband is jealous and violent. Disaster ensues, and as Josh’s choices move from silly to profoundly absurd, The Making of Zombie Wars takes on real consequence.