In The Book of My Lives (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Aleksandar Hemon takes us though his life from his childhood in Sarajevo to the death of his young daughter -- from the public tragedy of warfare to the private catastrophe of the loss of his child. He discusses the lessons he's learned about literature: the fallacy that it is ennobling, as well as his gradual understanding that the storytelling need makes no distinction between fiction and non-fiction. Ultimately, what Hemon seeks from literature is the sense of community he felt in Bosnia, where there is no word for "private."
Read an excerpt from The Book of My Lives.