Semezdin Mehmedinović

Semezdin Mehmedinović (born 1960 in Kiseljak, near Tuzla, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia) is a Bosnian writer, filmmaker, and magazine editor.

After studying Librarianship and Comparative Literature in Sarajevo, he worked as an editor of "Lica" and "Valter" magazines, which served as a voice of opposition to the ruling Communist regime. Mehmedinović published his first book of poetry "Modrac" in 1984, and his second book "Emigrant" in 1990. Shortly before the Bosnian war, in 1991, he founded the cultural magazine "Fantom slobode" (transl. "Phantom of Freedom"). When war broke out in 1992, Mehmedinović remained in Sarajevo with his family. The same year, he published an early version of Sarajevo Blues. Shortly thereafter, he and a group of friends founded the weekly political magazine BH Dani (transl. "Days") in 1992, to give a voice for democracy and pluralism in times of genocide.

In 1994, during the Bosnian War, Semezdin and Benjamin Filipović co-wrote and co-directed the film "Mizaldo, kraj Teatra," which starred Bernard-Henri Lévy and premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1996, after the end of the siege of Sarajevo and the conclusion of the Bosnian war, Mehmedinović emigrated to the United States, and currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. "Sarajevo Blues" was published in English in 1998 and was praised by the Washington Post as one of the best literary documents of the Bosnian war. "Sarajevo Blues" was translated into German, Dutch, Hungarian and Turkish; while portions of the book were translated in over thirty languages. In 2002, Mehmedinović published another book of poems entitled "Devet Alexandrija", which was later published by the City Lights of San Francisco under the title "Nine Alexandrias".

In 2009, Semezdin Mehmedinović and Miljenko Jergovic co-wrote "Transatlantic Mail", a book of personal letters. Semezdin published "Soviet Computer" in March 2011, and "Self-portrait With a Messenger Bag" in June 2012. His book "Soviet Computer" was published in Hungary in 2014. New manuscript the " Window Book" published in Zagreb in August 2014.

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