My Yugoslavia: A Tale of Pain and False Glory

The Bachmann Prize winner searches for the roots of the violence that both created and destroyed Yugoslavia and finds it in his childhood home.

I was 10 when the war began and 13 when it ended, but it had been a constant presence in my life since birth. I grew up in a brutal society. How can I explain what I mean by that? Perhaps with a story. I was only 7 years old when someone knocked out two of my baby teeth during a fight. The reason was an insult: My father came from a Muslim family, my mother was Croatian, and an older schoolmate contemptuously called me a mješanac, a half-breed. When I returned home with bloody lips after the fight, my father advised me to take a stone in my fist next time to hit harder.