Esad Jaganjac
The novel 'Emir Mateo' was inspired by actual events describing the suffering and senselessness of the war in the Balkans in 1992 - 1995, in which the author and his family found themselves. It is a true event with real main characters, while the other characters are described according to the author’s memory. The novel’s main character is a twelve-year-old boy, Edvin, who finds himself with his family in the horror of the war on Blakan in besieged Sarajevo. Assassins used snipers and grenades to spread death over the citizens of Sarajevo in the period from 1992 to 1995. The boy’s father finds a way to evacuate the rest of the family to the United Kingdom. At the same time, he remains to defend Bosnia from aggression from neighbouring Serbia and Croatia. However, evil fate catches up with Edvin even in exile. Due to the enormous stress and inability to understand the world around him, he becomes mentally ill, significantly increasing the family’s tragedy. Edvin wants to tell his story very much, but because of his illness, he can’t. That is why his father tells his tragic experience in this novel.
