For 16 years Vedran Smailovic has been feted as the Cellist of Sarajevo, a
musician who defied the city’s snipers by playing for 22 successive days in
the rubble of an explosion that claimed the lives of 22 of his fellow
Bosnians as they queued to buy bread.
Dressed in evening tails and perching on a fire-scorched chair, the
photographs of his grieving face became a searing global image that made
artists such as David Bowie, U2, Pavarotti and Sir Paul McCartney clamour to
perform with him.
But the fame that accompanied his artistic protest was not welcome. After the
conflict he retreated into homely obscurity, finding an attic flat
overlooking Carlingford Lough on the border between Northern Ireland and the
Republic, in the quiet backwater of Warrenpoint. Here he spends his days
composing music and playing chess.
Smailovic was content with his lot – until he discovered that a novel called The
Cellist of Sarajevo was in the bookshops. Written by Steven Galloway, a
32-year-old Canadian who teaches creative writing in Vancouver, it has been
hailed as a masterpiece.
Smailovic is 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. The publisher, Random
House, describes the novel as telling “the story of three people trying to
survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate times, and of the
sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst”.
One of the three characters is a female sniper “who is asked to protect the
cellist from a hidden shooter who is out to kill him as he plays his
memorial”.The Cellist of Sarajevois on its way to becoming an
international bestseller and the film rights have been sold to Hollywood.
Smailovic first heard about it through a Canadian artist friend with whom he
collaborated on a children’s fable about his musical protest.
“It was like the explosion of an atomic bomb, emotions of anger and pain,” he
told The Times. “How is this possible? They steal my name and
identity.
“Nobody can take the rights to that from me. It’s quite clear that it is me in
the book.”
Last week, while performing at a memorial concert for British soldiers killed
in Bosnia, he was advised to fight back. “Friends force me to take legal
action. I expect damages for what they have done, an apology and
compensation.”
In an author’s note in the novel Galloway says that Smailovic’s actions
“inspired this novel, but I have not based the character of the cellist on
the real Smailovic”.
A copy of the novel arrived in the post asThe Timesinterviewed the
musician, with a dedication: “For Vedran, with great admiration. I hope I
have done your actions good service. From a fellow artist. Steven Galloway.”
But that did nothing to soothe Smailovic’s anger.
“I am still in shock. I am not naive. 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 am not interested at all. I never
blessed this project.
“I am not hiding here, but for ten years I have not wanted to go out. I don’t
want to be involved any more as a peacemaker or a public person. I did what
I did and that was that, mission accomplished. I have a right to my privacy.
I will do the occasional event for charity on a voluntary basis but I don’t
want to go public again and now because of this book I am forced to.” Still
tormented by his memories of the siege of Sarajevo, Smailovic rails against
the misrepresentations of his protest that refuse to go away. “I didn’t play
for 22 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.”
He is returning to the city next month where he will be reunited with the folk
singer Joan Baez and take part in an American documentary about her life. Ms
Baez was inspired to visit him in Sarajevo during the height of the
fighting, an act of solidarity that he considers to have been braver than
his own actions.
Galloway, contacted by The Times, confessed that he was “upset” by
Smailovic’s reaction but insisted that he felt he had done nothing wrong nor
owed the real Cellist of Sarajevo any compensation. “I’ve been an admirer of
his for some time. But I’m not sure entirely about in what way he feels that
what I’ve done with his identity is different from the other works of art
which have been inspired by him.
“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.
“I understand where he’s coming from but I just wish that he’d read it. I
didn’t contact him while writing the book because the characters don’t have
contact with the Cellist and so it doesn’t really matter to them what he
does.
“The problem is that Mr Smailovic took a cello on to a street in a war and
that’s an extremely public act. I can’t ignore that as an artist. I really
hoped when I sent him the book that he would feel it had added to the
discussion that he started.
“I’m at a bit of a loss to know how to address it. I don’t think that I
crossed any lines about writing fictional things about a living person. I
got most of my stuff off the internet.”
But it is not as if Galloway was not warned of Smailovic’s feelings about the
book. Deryk Houston, a multimedia artist who lives near the author in
British Columbia, told The Times that he had told Galloway that he
should have been open with the cellist from the beginning of the project.
“I feel that he should have been contacted at the early stages of this
excellent book by Mr Galloway. Even if there is no legal obligation, I felt
that the right thing to have done would have been for him to offer Vedran
some sort of financial arrangement.
“I told him that I wouldn’t enjoy cashing any royalty cheques if Vedran was
not compensated, because he created the Cellist of Sarajevo.” Mr Houston
described the author as “a very nice young man” but added: “It’s my feeling
that he dropped the ball on this one due to his youth, or perhaps he was
given poor advice by those around him. I don’t know.
“I wrote Vedran about it because I would rather he heard about it through
friends than seeing it in a book store one day. We offered to accompany Mr
Galloway to Northern Ireland and introduce him to Vedran if it would help.
He thought about that idea but did not take us up on the offer.”
However, Galloway said that he did not believe that the painter’s suggestion
of paying Smailovic made any sense.
“If I had, I suppose, sat down with him and taken up his time . . . but I
don’t see how fiction writers can start paying their sources of inspiration.
I would become a pariah of the literary world if I were to do that.
“I don’t even know if I owe him anything on a fiscal level. What about the 25
people I interviewed whose stories are in the book? Should I pay them too?
How do you work this out?”
As Vedran Smailovic nurses his anger, troubled by the resurrected memories of
a time of suffering and brooding over the money flowing into a young
Canadian author’s bank account, Galloway is facing his own dilemma.
“I never thought I would be making an enemy of Vedran Smailovic. I thought he
just might not like the book.”
Assuming that Galloway's initially contacting Vedran was a possibility, if only to discuss his ideas for the book - and perhaps gain some useful insight - then perhaps none of this would have happened. Common courtesy - a virtue somehow lacking in today's young. Excellent book though.
Sandy, Edinburgh, Midlothian
I just finished reading the extraordinary book and was moved to seek more information regarding a conflict I knew little about. I was left with a lifted heart at the power of the human spirit of those who survived. I intend to share it with my grandaughter who is a gifted cellist. Music lives on!
Susan Derozier, Largo, USA
I have read this marvelous book. I have never a war, but I have visited and seen the effect on war victims. This isn't about the book, it's the cellists memories of war. He's tried to hide from them, but now they're back as a book. Still, it's fiction. There's no way to undo what is done.
Ian, Ashland,
I agree with suggestions that private discussion between cellist and author with mutual intent to find common ground is how resolution might be, and, one hopes, has been by now, discovered. Enough. The dispute can only detract from the beauty expressed by both artists.
Gwen Lundberg, Seattle, Washington
I believe that the author could try to soothe matters by offering to pay for a memorial to the victims of the massacre or some similiar gesture to show good faith with a man understandably still traumatised by the war.
anthony mitchell, newry, ireland
Mr. Smailovic provided a focus for characters trying to survive the shelling, snipers, water shortages, starvation and losses in the midst of absolute chaos, similar to the movie "Bobby", where his assassination is the focus of the characters who were at the Ambassador Hotel that day.
Gail Cyr, Yellowknife, Canada
This is a classic circular argument. Both views are completely "right". The cut and dried comments on either side do little to encourage resolution. Both men are clearly honourable in intent and Mr Houston comes closest in suggesting that private dialogue offers the best chance of reconciliation.
Paul Cosgrave, Blackheath, Australia
Galloway owes nothing to Smailovic. He took a story already in the public domain, widely circulated over the Internet, and used it in a work of fiction. You talk about Galloway "capitalizing" on Smailovic's suffering. It seems to me Smailovic is clearly bent on doing some capitalizing of his own.
Brian Brennan, Calgary, Canada
I understand Vedran perfectly. I'm from Bosnia too. One really has to live through what we've lived through here during the 90s to understand the immense emotions that are present in each and every one Bosnian Croat, Serb, or Muslim. Many greetings to Vedran from Sarajevo.
A Bosnian Franciscan
Branko O'Mlaky, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Gandhi said ... "I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a diffcult task............."
I hope Mr. Smailovic and Mr. Galloway understand the wisdom of those words and find a solution that accommodates both their needs.
Deryk houston, Victoria BC, Canada
The author wrote the book, what he should do is give money to charities helping war victims in Bosnia. There is no need to give money to the source of the inspiration unless direct assistance was received from authors from those that inspire their novels.
Farrukh, London, UK