Saša Stanišić was a 14-year-old refugee boy when he came to Germany, and he knew virtually no German at all. Fourteen years later, he became a successful writer — in the German language.
Image: DW/ M.Smajic
Advertisement
Artists After the Escape: Saša Stanišić, from Bosnia to Germany
Saša Stanišić is a celebrated star on the German literary scene. Winning the 2015 Leipzig Book Fair Prize garnered him international acclaim. He came to Germany as a teenager, as a refugee from the Bosnian war.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/A. Burgi
Saša Stanišić, acclaimed writer
For a long time, books by the Bosnian-German writer Saša Stanišić were regarded an insider tip — before they reaped awards because they are so truly authentic. Painstakingly researched, his amusing stories from Bosnia ("How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone") and absurd tales about trapping and traps set in the eastern German Uckermark region ("Trappers") are very successful.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/A. Burgi
The Visegrad Bridge
He clearly remembers things that were once important to him, he told DW — and that includes his hometown of Visegrad in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his books, he incorporates life on the Drina River, and the tales of the old men he would listen to for hours when he was a child. The 16th century Visegrad Bridge, above, is a landmark in his hometown.
Image: picture-alliance/MAXPPP/S. Daval
Fleeing the war
The Bosnia and Herzegovina war came as a violent intrusion. The Stanišić family managed to flee Visegrad just in time, carrying no more than three brown suitcases with the bare necessities. Saša was 14 years old. They made it to the Serbian border, walked all the way to Belgrade and finally flew to Munich, where an uncle lived and vouched for the family.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
Familiar landscapes
On August 20, 1992, Saša Stanišić and his mother arrived in Heidelberg, an idyllic German university town on the Neckar River. The landscape was similar to what he had known back home, and he enjoyed sitting beside taciturn fishermen on the banks of the river, like he used to in Visegrad. His father, who had stayed behind in Bosnia to move his aging mother to safety, joined them later.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Wittek
Bridge to a new world
For the teenager, the castle ruin high above Heidelberg's old town was "the most beautiful ruin in the world." In Bosnia, the only ruins he knew were ruins of war. The stone bridge across the Neckar River was like a bridge that led to the past he left behind in destroyed Bosnia. The family lived with the uncle before moving to a small apartment of their own.
Image: picture alliance/ dpa
Arriving in Germany
After arriving in Germany, an amazed Saša and his mother would walk the tourist paths. The cobble stones and street lights on the bridge looked strangely familiar but still foreign. The German language was a mystery for the 14-year-old. No one understood them, and they understood no one. He knew the German words for soccer and chocolate ice cream, and then learned to say "My name is …" in German.
Image: eyetronic - Fotolia.com
Language is key
Many languages echoed along the streets of Heidelberg's old town, a hotspot for tourists from all over the world. No one took notice of the Bosnian refugees. At school, Saša Stanišić enjoyed piecing together sentences in German in his language class for refugee children. At age 15, he began to write poetry, even in German. He was beginning to feel at ease.
Image: DW/A.Gassen
Young and ambitious
The German Immigration Office kept close tabs on the family. Following the 1995 Dayton Agreement, the family was meant to be deported to Bosnia, a move officially termed "voluntary return." Thanks to a friendly official's advice, young Saša applied to college and was allowed to stay in Germany. Eventually, he wanted to teach German as a foreign language.
Image: Kirchgessner
College life in Heidelberg
Saša Stanišić left his family home in Emmertsgrund, a migrant community on the outskirts of Heidelberg, and moved downtown. The fact that he was a refugee from Bosnia no longer mattered. The young man concentrated on his classes, completed his M.A. and went to the US for a year.
Image: DW/A.Gassen
Prize-winning literature
As a student, he began to write literary texts, honing his skills at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. In 2005, one of his stories won the audience award at the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition. It launched his career as a German-language writer. Meanwhile, Saša Stanišić has written bestselling books, and received many literary awards.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/H. Schmidt
A German writer
Stanišić, meanwhile the father of a young son, received German citizenship in 2103. His parents, forced to leave Germany in 1998, moved to the US state of Florida. Stanišić is politically active as a member of the PEN center. He is also a great observer of the people surrounding him — they might find themselves pop up as characters in his next novel.
Image: DW/ M.Smajic
11 images1 | 11
Every year, Saša Stanišić does about 100 author readings; he's a professional performer and reader on the stage by now. He clearly loves juggling with the German language and the meaning between the lines, with the same subtle irony he uses when observing the people around him. His entertaining author readings are in great demand.
His 2006 debut novel "How the Soldier repairs the Gramophone" has been reprinted several times and translated into more than 30 languages.
His second novel, the 2014 "Before the Feast" garnered him the Leipzig Book Fair Award and quickly won him international fame.
Stanišić honed his professional writing skills at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. Working on his texts showed him how important it is for a writer to think about what is being said between the lines, he told DW.
He also said he loves to write somewhere in public, surrounded by other people — for instance at the Medical Central Library in Hamburg, where he lives. "Everybody there studies like mad, so I can really concentrate," he said, adding that he takes a few books from the shelves to make sure he doesn't draw attention.
'Look at the word and the word looks back'
To a certain extent, Stanišić's protagonists are trying to escape, too — from somewhere or from something.
There's Ferdinand Klingenreiter, an aging magician battling his fear of failing on stage and the chaotic Mo, who always falls in love with the wrong kind of women, in particular human rights activists.
In 2008, Saša Stanišić was the youngest laureate ever to have won the Adelbert von Chamisso literary prize Image: Kirchgessner
Saša Stanišić is a wonderful storyteller with a charming accent in German. His author readings are like poetry slams, and there is always a lot of laughter. In fact, sometimes the author himself can barely contain himself.
In his novels, hardly a page goes by without some linguistic surprise. Suddenly, he might wax philosophical about fish, claiming that what he likes about them is the fact that they are "perpetually depressed — there is no cheerful fish." And Saša Stanišić knows what he is talking about. As a child in Visegrad, he loved to fish. He enjoyed the peace and quiet along the river where he could just let his thoughts wander.
A passion for writing
Stanišić was 12 years old when he wrote his first texts in Serbo-Croatian. Two years later, he and his family fled the war in his native country, and headed to Germany, where they stayed with an uncle in Heidelberg. Later, they moved to an apartment in the Emmertsgrund suburb on the fringes of the city.
The language class for foreigners at his new high school opened a new linguistic world to the boy. Stanišić quickly learned to speak and write German, even writing highly emotional poetry in the new language. The language class was his refuge, he said, adding that he was never unable to cope. He only needed two or three months to get a handle on the German language.
The bridge in Heidelberg reminded the young man of the bridge in his hometown, VisegradImage: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Wittek
He narrowly escaped deportation back home by applying to college, but his parents had to leave Germany, choosing to move to the southern US state of Florida, where they still live today. With an MA diploma in his pocket, Saša Stanišić later also spent a year in the US.
A voice that is heard
The story of his escape is always present to Saša Stanišić. "So much is reminiscent of 1992, our escape to Germany, uncertainties during the journey, the feeling of being at people's mercy, the long marches, the fear," he noted on his blog, "kuenstlicht."
In 2014, Stanišić won the fiction prize at the Leipzig Book Fair Image: picture-alliance/dpa
In interviews, he likes to stress that he is endlessly thankful that he was offered so many opportunities in Germany, that he was able to go to college and that now, as a successful author, he has a voice that is heard.
Every native country is a random place, he argues. People are born in one place, escape to another — and are lucky, he says, if they can influence fate.
Playful, humorous, bittersweet
His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and mirror not just a penchant for slapstick comedy, but political alertness.
The writer has a close eye on the rise of far-right populists in Germany and a latent xenophobia toward refugees.
"I like to conjure losers," he told an amused audience when he was awarded the 2016 Rheingau Literature Prize. "In my stories, I give them prospects," he added, his face thoughtful and serious all of a sudden. The audience was silent for a moment — and that is what matters to Saša Stanišić. He wants to be heard.
