Shards

Ismet Prcic's brilliant, provocative, and propulsively energetic debut is about a young Bosnian, also named Ismet Prcic, who has fled his war-torn homeland and is now struggling to reconcile his past with his present life in California.

He is advised that in order to make peace with the corrosive guilt he harbors over leaving behind his family behind, he must "write everything." The result is a great rattlebag of memories, confessions, and fictions: sweetly humorous recollections of Ismet's childhood in Tuzla appear alongside anguished letters to his mother about the challenges of life in this new world. As Ismet's foothold in the present falls away, his writings are further complicated by stories from the point of view of another young man--real or imagined--named Mustafa, who joined a troop of elite soldiers and stayed in Bosnia to fight. When Mustafa's story begins to overshadow Ismet's new-world identity, the reader is charged with piecing together the fragments of a life that has become eerily unrecognizable, even to the one living it.

Shards is a thrilling read--a harrowing war story, a stunningly inventive coming of age, and a heartbreaking saga of a splintered family.


Author: Ismet Prcic
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Published: 10/04/2011
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.83lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.59w x 1.13d
ISBN: 9780802170811
Award: L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner
Award: Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award - Winner
Award: Oregon Book Awards - Winner
Award: Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize - Finalist

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/01/2011 pg. 58
Library Journal 07/01/2011 pg. 73
Publishers Weekly 08/08/2011
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2011
Booklist 10/15/2011 pg. 29
New York Times Book Review 10/23/2011 pg. 16
New York Times Book Review 10/30/2011 pg. 30
Shelf Awareness 10/25/2011
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/04/2011 pg. 25