Though Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo is about the fictional lives of four characters during the Siege of Sarajevo, the unnamed Cellist in the novel is based of Vedran Smailovic, a cellist who played in the streets of Sarajevo for the duration of the two-year siege. Smailovic’s dedication to music during such time of hardship has inspired musicians such as David Bowie, U2, Pavarotti and Sir Paul McCartney and all of them have asked to perform with him. Yet he does not welcome the fame. He wants peace after two years of warfare.
When The Cellist of Sarajevo came out, Smailovic was “so angry that he is threatening to stage another protest and burn his famous cello in the spot where he played Albinoni’s Adagio during those 22 days of mourning and protest in 1992.” To Smailovic, the book stole his identity. “I am still in shock. I am not naïve. I am not interested in his bloody fiction, I am interested in reality. They are using my picture and advertising their product with my name… I never blessed this project.”
In the author’s note Galloway says that Smailovic’s actions “inspired this novel, but I have not based the character of the cellist on the real Smailovic.” “I don’t use his name, I call my character the Cellist and he’s really only a character in the first five pages. It’s not really about him; it’s about the other characters and their reactions to what he does.” So far from what we read in The Cellist of Sarajevo, we have not seen much of a character from the Cellist except from the first four pages, but when Arrow is sent to guard him, he seems more as a symbol against the siege rather than a person against it.
Still, Smailovic feels misrepresented. He claims, “I didn’t play for twenty two days, I played all my life in Sarajevo and for the two years of the siege each and every day. “They keep saying I played at four in the afternoon, but the explosion was at ten in the morning and I am not stupid, I wasn’t looking to get shot by snipers so I varied my routine.” “I never stopped playing music throughout the siege. My weapon was my cello. But if I do not get justice now, I will burn it back in Sarajevo.” Though Galloway never contacted Smailovic before or during the novel’s process, do you think Galloway was wrong to write a book based of this legendary man and how he impacted the lives around him in a fictional way?
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4083037.ece
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I feel that the basis of Galloway's novel is not about Smailovic. Sure, Galloway might have done better to contact Smailovic and ask his opinion, but Galloway has every right to write about what he wants. The novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, is just that--a novel. It is not non-fiction about Smailovic's experience during the war. Galloway was inspired by this man's ACTIONS and I feel he represents the man with respect. Smailovic's name is never mentioned--the book is NOT about him specifically. I feel Galloway, like Smailovic, has the right to create and write how he pleases.
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