Aleksandar Hemon's testimonial metafictions: Resisting narrativization of the siege of Sarajevo and representing the effects of exile

This thesis argues that the fictional works of Sarajevan writer Aleksandar Hemon can be viewed as testimonial texts. I examine his novels and collections of short stories in conversation with the literary response to the siege of Sarajevo and as representations of the effects of exile, which he suffered when he was displaced during the siege. Though testimony is generally told in first person narratives, Hemon's works deconstruct narrativization to resist the reductive emplotment of the Bosnian War and to better represent the incomprehensible nature of trauma. He testifies to the complexities of the Sarajevan peoples and the psychological effects of exile to personalize the war.