From Booklist
The often-confounding, but ultimately rewarding, narrative lines running circles through
State of Siege find Spanish novelist Goytisolo combining a Borgesian spirit of play with the lyrically righteous anger at oppression perfected by Eduardo Galeano. Set during the siege of Sarajevo (with serpentine side trips to a Paris neighborhood also under siege), the book displays all the earmarks of magic realism--unexplained disappearances, people discovering they may be fictional characters, reincarnated saints, and dizzying shifts in narrative perspective that somehow manage to retain a similar authorial voice. But midway through, Goytisolo provides plausible explanations for all that has transpired--only to begin playing tricks with reality anew. Readers game enough to follow the twists and turns will find the tale most effective in underscoring the tragic absurdity of sieges whose victims can only guess at the rationale of their persecutors, and of international "peacekeeping" forces that help maintain the bloody status quo by treating the hunters and the hunted equally.
Frank SennettCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
'At once an account of the siege of Sarajevo, a parade of postmodern storytelling techniques and an indictment of Western indifference' New York Times 'This short, chilling novel further strengthens the views of many who feel that Goytisolo could be Europe's next Nobel Prize winner' Bloomsbury Review Translated by Helen Lane
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
