The Bridge Over the Drina

In the 16th century a stone bridge was built over the river Drina in the small town of Vishegrad in what is now Bosnia. It survived centuries of turmoil in the region before being destroyed in the First World War. In Nobel laureate Andric’s novel the bridge bear silent witness to the region’s troubled history. In a sequence of interconnected stories taken from different periods in the bridge’s history , Andric builds up his narrative of the continuities and changes in the region, and of the fluctuating relationships between different ethnic and religious groups. The bridge endures the centuries, overshadowing the ephemeral lives of the town’s people. It survives to connect or separate generations of Muslims, Christians and Jews engaged in daily toil and, often, bloody conflict. The Bridge on the Drina is both a remarkable work of historical fiction and a moving, understated plea for tolerance and understanding.