Sarajevo, 1990s, the Bosnian conflict rages on as a multi-ethnic defense group does their best to hold off the army on the hills surrounding the capital of the young country, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A historical fiction novel about this city and this war, The Cellist of Sarajevo was written by Canadian novelist Steven Galloway. After the war, Galloway thoroughly researched the Sarajevan life during the war and not only recounts stories through his fictional characters, but also examines human nature through their lives.
         Within this city which Galloway studied, he places his four characters. With a military life, Arrow, a skilled, intuitive yet cynical female sniper fights against the “men on the hills.” Kenan, a reflective father marked by fear struggles to keep his family alive. Dragan, a pessimistic worker at a bakery remembers Sarajevo's past with sentimentality, but refuses to connect with others in the present as he goes about his life. Amongst these turbulent lives, Galloway inserts the Cellist, a musician who does what he can to create hope for himself.
         The very first chapter shows how the Cellist does this. As he “sits beside the window of his second-floor apartment” he sees a mortar shell hit a line of people waiting for bread. The Cellist previously had played his cello to relieve some of the pain of the war, and he does so again to give himself hope. He regains his hope by publicly playing his most inspiring piece in the bombed street for 22 days: one day for each victim of the shelling.
         Dragan on the other hand does not even try to regain hope. The depressed man occasionally goes to his workplace to “eat for free,” and as he travels there, his world is turned upside down when he is barely missed by a bullet while he is crossing a street. His life is marked by sadness and although he survives the one incident why should he survive the next? Furthermore, Dragan avoids all contact with those he knew before the siege, but he cannot say no to an old friend, Emina, who has a greater influence on him than Dragan would ever have thought.
         Kenan on the other hand, smiles when he sees his friends. He meets Ismet during his journey to the water brewery and does not ignore him. However there is only so much a re-encounter with friends can do because Kenan gradually separates himself from the world around him. He turns into a selfish human who does not want to help those who do not help him in return. As time wears on, Kenan’s frustration builds, and the nuisances of civilian war life weigh him down until his anger inside comes out to have a strong impact on those around him. At this point, he becomes increasingly stubborn and harbours rage inside of him, but will anything be able to bring him back to the loving person he used to be?
         The one who does not have a family cares little about having something to eat or drink. Independent and dangerous, Arrow the “weapon” takes out the “monsters” on the hills with a simple twitch of a finger on her rifle. She kills with ease and seeming inconsequence, yet when she is forced to intertwine her life with the Cellist by protecting him, she sees a shimmer of hope in the distance. His music brings back the girl who “felt an enveloping happiness to be alive” before she had become a sniper. At first reluctantly, but then with growing determination she protects the life of the musician, in the process making her own life vulnerable to more than just physical change.
         In one novel in which three protagonists are all connected by the fourth major character, it sooner or later seems as if every citizen in Sarajevo is drawn by the hopeful aura emanated by the Cellist. Although it appears as if Dragan, Kenan and Arrow are three distinct people with separate stories, they all find themselves in the exact same state of hopelessness. The exact same state of loneliness. The exact same state of despair. Although their stories begin at three different points of time, starting within a week to a few days of each other, they all find themselves encountered by the same hope which will aim to turn them around.
         Galloway enhances his book by inserting countless characterizations and by starting right into the action. The whole book is more appealing due to its fast-paced beginning which includes little description of what happened beforehand. This is known as in media res, and Arrow is a very good example of this in that her plot begins with her on a roof, preparing to shoot an enemy. She is in the face of danger from the very start knowing that “her chances of escaping…are slim.” To compensate for the lack of background info, Galloway uses frequent flashbacks which provide a fuller view of what it was like weeks, months or years back. Not only does Galloway use these flashbacks to contribute to characterization, he also incorporates imagery and other literary devices to make the Cellist, Kenan, Dragan and Arrow more developed. Arrow “is a weapon,” Dragan sees others as “frightened animals,” Kenan considers himself to be “like a wet and frightened dog,” and the Cellist regains hope “as if he were filling a car with gasoline.” All in all, the book is an interesting, but also compelling narrative creatively integrating the morals and ethics of mankind.