Hemon returns to his childhood roots in Sarajevo, a small blissful city where he used to write bad poetry, play soccer, and listen to American music. Years later, Sarajevo came under siege while Hemon was in Chicago starting a new life and new family, as his parents were fleeing all they’d ever known. The Book of My Lives is a love song to two cities—a daring first book of non-fiction from a turbulent literary talent.
Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and author of three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Love and Obstacles. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation. His new memoir is The Book of My Lives.
Louise Steinman is the curator of the award-winning ALOUD series and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at USC. She is the author of three books: The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father’s War; The Knowing Body: The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance; and The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Jewish-Polish Reconciliation (forthcoming, fall, 2013). Her work appears, most recently, in The Los Angeles Review of Books and on her Crooked Mirror blog.
