In this masterpiece of historical fiction by the Nobel Prize-winning
Yugoslavian author, a stone bridge in a small Bosnian town bears silent
witness to three centuries of conflict.
The town of Visegrad was long caught between the warring Ottoman and
Austro-Hungarian Empires, but its sixteenth-century bridge survived
unscathed--until 1914 when tensions in the Balkans triggered the first
World War. Spanning generations, nationalities, and creeds, The Bridge
on the Drina brilliantly illuminates a succession of lives that swirl
around the majestic stone arches.
Among them is that of the bridge's builder, a Serb kidnapped as a boy by
the Ottomans; years later, as the empire's Grand Vezir, he decides to
construct a bridge at the spot where he was parted from his mother. A
workman named Radisav tries to hinder the construction, with horrific
consequences. Later, the beautiful young Fata climbs the bridge's
parapet to escape an arranged marriage, and, later still, an inveterate
gambler named Milan risks everything on it in one final game with the
devil.
With humor and compassion, Ivo Andric chronicles the ordinary
Christians, Jews, and Muslims whose lives are connected by the bridge,
in a land that has itself been a bridge between East and West for
centuries.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on
acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil
stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style
half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
