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by Meša Selimovic
Death and the Dervish is an acclaimed novel by Bosnian writer Mesa Selimovic.
It recounts the story of Sheikh Nuruddin, a dervish residing in an Islamic monastery in Sarajevo in the eighteenth century during the Ottoman Turk hegemony over the Balkans. When his brother is arrested, he must descend into the Kafkaesque world of the Ottoman authorities in his search to discover what happened to him. He narrates his story in the form of an elaborate suicide note, regularly misquoting the Koran. In time, he begins to question his relations with society as a whole and, eventually, his life choices in general.
Hugely successful when published in the 1960s, Death and the Dervish is an enduring classic made into a feature length film in 1974.
"A famous novel...that generates enormous power—worthy of comparison with Selimovic's great countryman and forerunner Ivo Andric." —Kirkus Reviews
"Selimovic portrays a man hopelessly out of touch with himself and others, viciously in need of being right, secretly coveting power for himself. Groveling before authority, he knowingly betrays innocent people, yet rationalizes everything with perverted interpretations of the Koran. His brother's death, towards the beginning of the novel, and the near-destruction of the community's purest and most generous soul, by the end, enclose a tortuous psychological exposition of the perils of delusion and the ease with which fear destroys the most unyielding moral good." —Publishers Weekly
This information about Death and the Dervish (Writings From An Unbound Europe) was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Meša Selimovic (1910–1982) was born in Tuzla, Bosnia. A writer of numerous award-winning novels, including The Fortress, he was among the most popular novelists in Yugoslavia.
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