Meša Selimović was one of the greatest Bosnian writers of the 20th century. His most famous works deal with Bosnia and Herzegovina and the culture of the Bosniak inhabitants of the Ottoman province of Bosnia. He excels at exploring Bosnian identity and life under Ottoman rule, delving into the cultural conflicts and historical heritage that shaped the region.
Sheikh Nuruddin is a dervish at a Sarajevo monastery in the eighteenth century during the Turkish occupation. When his brother is arrested, he descends into the Kafkaesque world of the Turkish authorities in order to find out what has happened. As he does so, 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 appears here in its first English translation.
One of the most significant and fascinating novels to come out of the former Yugoslavia. Ahmet Shabo returns home to eighteenth-century Sarajevo from the war in Russia, numbed by the death in battle or suicide of nearly his entire military unit.