Little Bastards in Springtime: A Novel

by Katja Rudolph

It's spring, 1992. Jevrem Andric is eleven years old and brutal civil war is erupting in Sarajevo. At first it's just boring, as kids shut in apartments run out of ways to entertain themselves. A few weeks later boredom is a luxury. Hell has arrived. They are trapped and face starvation and death. Jevrem's only comfort is his beloved grandmother, a tough World War Two partisan who has seen everything there is to see in war. Five years later, what's left of his family has immigrated to Toronto, where spring feels like mid-winter, his grandmother is broken and ill, and sixteen-year-old Jevrem is on a rampage, drinking, doing drugs, and breaking into houses with his small gang of Yugoslav friends. When his grandmother dies, he faces a moral reckoning that compels him to try, in his own warped way, to do some good in the world--the consequences be damned. Rudolph's voice is searing, tender, at times hallucinatory, as she creates a brilliant portrait of a boy's fight for emotional survival and a family's attempt to find peace in a new land.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2014

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Seige of Sarajevo for someone like me - it's impossible to comprehend why , impossible to comprehend what it was like to live through it and impossible to comprehend what it was like to survive it having lost your father , your brother , your sister . Katja Rudolph, although she herself did not live through this war depicts a beautiful and sad , yet hopeful story of a young boy wounded both physically and emotionally . I was held from the beginning by the beautiful prose even when the descriptions were of the violence both during the war and a different kind of violence afterwards. I have read a couple of books about the Siege of Sarajevo , and I thought none more affecting than The Cellist of Sarajevo but this novel is right there with it . This story is powerful as well .

Jevrem , an eleven year old boy living in Sarajevo has a good life , a good and loving family. His father is a journalist. His mother is a concert pianist. He has a close relationship with his grandmother , Baka whose story she tells him each time they are together about her life as a partisan fighter against the Nazis . Life as he and his siblings know it is not just disrupted but destroyed.

Javrem and what is left of his family immigrate to Canada . Four years later he seems to have lost his way , unable to make sense of things. The crime and drugs and the drinking of course can't be condoned but it is apparent how the suffering and grief are unbearable for him . I could feel nothing but sorrow for him as I saw his longing for an earlier , happier time in his home country and how he tried desperately to hold back his memories of those horrible years . It's easy to think how bad his actions are but then I remember the 11 year old boy and what happened to him and I just couldn't condemn him. And then he tries to do something good as Baka always told him to do and the less than conventional and less than legal ways he tries to do this only compound Jevrem's troubles .

I couldn't help but be emotional when I saw how Jevrem could not move forward and let go of the past . Yes , he's in the present but it's as if he's frozen in time at times as he hallucinates and dreams about his father and brother and grandmother . I've read about soldiers coming back from war with post traumatic stress disorder but I have not read about a child war survivor who goes through it until now . I've been known to cry when reading a book that moves me but not too often . Jevrem's story is among those that made me cry because an eleven year old child and his family who see the unspeakable, suffer the hardships of war , lose their family and home represent the thousands that lived this or died through this.


Thank you Steerforth Press and NetGalley.

[Regina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Little Bastards in Springtime attracted me right away with its title. The novel that accompanies the title is also interesting and eye opening.

I guess it could be said that Little Bastards in Springtime is a coming of age novel and not your usual cutesy feel good one.

The first part starts with Jevrem when he is eleven years old and it’s springtime and civil war has erupted in Sarajevo, and then the next part is five years later, spring again, but in Toronto, Canada where has family has immigrated to.

The novel made me question my own attitude towards ‘troublemaker’ immigrants, and provided insight as to potentially why some immigrants are ‘troublemakers’. It also made me think about the many children that are experiencing war now - usually they are out of sight out of mind, and the impact it is having on them.

Little Bastards also pressed my ‘I must know more’ button, so I have been surfing the web and finding out more about Sarajevo and the civil war. I was in my early teenage years when it was happening, and all safe here in Australia so it wasn’t even a blip on my radar.

I also learnt a new word in the novel that answered something I have often pondered - verisimilitude .

I found Little Bastards in Spring time to be a well written, informative and educational read. At some points throughout the book I did find myself scratching my head wondering where I was, however it is a necessary element, so I was fine to put up with the disorientation of being in one spot and then suddenly being transported to another.

Thankyou to Netgalley and the publisher for my chance to read and review.

[NAMIK SOMEL · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Hem çürümeye başlamış bir ağaç gibi ölümlerin içini boşalttığı ruhuyla, bir insan yazılmış en güzel müzikleri nasıl çalabilir ki? Çaldığı notalar cesetlerden bataklığa dönüşmüş gölün derinliklerinde boğuluyorsa dünyanın en güzel müziğini çalsa ne olur?"

Melez çocukların bakış açısıyla farklı bir Bosna romanı...

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the war in Yugoslavia seemed incomprehensible to you, this book explains the foreign forces causing neighbours and family members to turn on one another. It's also an excellent story about a teen who, 11-years-old at the start of the war, relocates with his mother and sister to the States and tries to make sense of what happened and how he should proceed in life.

[Ali Drummond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intelligent, well-written and deeply moving, this powerful novel takes an unusually well-informed look at history, global politics and the Bosnian conflict. The story then narrows in on the effects of war on children, no matter where they might be from.

[Donna McAllister · Rating 5 out of 5]

You do not need to read a review on this book. What you need to do is read it.

[Hüseyin · Rating 4 out of 5]

1992 yılında Saraybosna'da başlayan ve 6 yıl süren etnik savaşı, henüz 11 yaşında olan Jevrem adında bir çocuğun hayal dünyasından aktarıyor yazar.

Jevrem'in süren savaş zamanı ve sonrasında yaşadığı travmaları, bu travmaların sonucunda geçirdiği dönüşümleri ve umuda yolculuğunu; acı,öfke,nefret, yalnızlık, hayal dünyası, hayatta kalma çabası ve sevgi temalarıyla içimize işleyerek anlatılıyor romanda.

Özellikle Jevrem'in baba ve kardeşine karşı duyduğu bağlılık ve bunun sonucunda ayrılıklarını kabullenmeyişi neticesinde gördüğü rüya ve hayallerin şiirsel tadı ile vedalaşma anlarının tasviri çok güzeldi.

Tarihsel, sosyolojik ve psikolojik bilgiler edinebileceğimiz güzel bir roman olduğunu düşünüyorum.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not easy to read about a family devastated by war, nor to see how it so deeply troubles a young person. Yet in this book, so richly written with compassion for the characters, in which all the "bad guys" are other and outside of the periphery of the narrative, it is touching to read about their humanity and experiences. It starts in Sarajevo, then in Toronto, then on the road. Each section is its own experience and trials. I often felt compelled to read and that I needed to put it down, simultaneously. The writing is excellent, the pain is real, the story is fiction so plausible. Good to read about an experience so foreign to my life to broaden my perspective and put life in context. Worth the read.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning chapters, when Jevrem is still in Yugoslavia, is by far the strongest part of the book. I know even annoying teenage boys (who are yes, secretly broken) can have profound thoughts, but the way they were written here wasn't entirely believable. While obviously there are kids who go around robbing people for no good reason, it didn't feel elucidating reading about it over and over. And then there's twist of the last third of the novel, which feels borne of a small, ill-conceived "what if" idea that Rudolph for some reason couldn't let go even though she really should have.

[Rita]

c 2014
First published in Turkey.
The story begins during the siege of *Sarajevo*, told by a boy of 11 with a Serb father and a Croatian mother, in 1992.
Interestingly both the title and the author's name changed since the WRB review in Sept 2015, where it was called Little Bastards in SUMMERtime, by Katja RUDOLF. The positive review [absorbing, exciting, thoughtful, informative, clarifying] notes that the author was born in England and moved to Canada age 7.

This would be my first time to read a novel set in former Yugoslavia.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very uneven book. The first part is moving and compelling, the story of Jevrem Andric caught up with his family in the Siege of Sarajevo. All the horrors of the war are seen through his eyes as the situation deteriorates and it is both an atmospheric and convincing account. The reader’s heart goes out to Jevrem as he tries to make sense of it all. After four years of loss and destruction, he emigrates with what remains of his family to Canada. But physical survival is not the same as emotional and psychological survival and Jevrem finds it impossible to throw off the trauma of war. In Toronto his behaviour deteriorates until he finds himself in detention. And it is once he arrives in Canada that the momentum that has been so compelling up to then drops away and the book becomes increasingly tedious. The catalogue of Jevrem’s delinquent acts with his gang of fellow refugees becomes tedious, and the long, rather academic conversations he has with his counsellor in the detention centre are boring, sermonizing and didactic. The story of how ordinary lives are disrupted and traumatised by war is indeed compelling and engaging, but the novel just drags on too long and the compassion and sympathy that we feel for Jevrem at the beginning soon fades away as his behaviour becomes more and more wayward. We might be able to understand that it’s his trauma that makes him act that way, but that doesn’t make him any more likeable. So a mixed bag of a book, one with much to recommend it, but also one that is flawed.

[Lindasp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. Jevrem Andric survives the war in Sarajevo at age 11 and moves with what's left of his family to Toronto at age 16. He can't settled in but forms a group of other young people who have survived the war and they call themselves "The Bastards of Yugoslavia". They spend their time drinking, doing drugs and breaking into homes and stealing things. Jevrem is finally arrested and sent to jail where he begins his long road back to a more normal life. I'm not really giving away the plot because this book is much more about Jevrem's 'journey' and awakening to what his life should be about. The "journey" is surreal in places.
A couple of interesting comments on the back of the book sum up the book: 'Jevrem survived the war but will he survive the peace', and 'how much of war remains after the war'.
Jevrem's uncle had some good advice for him: "It's all connected, what we do here and now, what happened back then. It's up to us. What we do with those experiences."
My last thought after reading this book is for all the children in the world today who are experiencing war--how will it affect them?

[World Literature Today]

"Katja Rudolph’s Evergreen Award–nominated first novel follows the Serb-Croat Andric family—journalist father, pianist mother, teenage son, six-year-old twin daughters, and younger son, Jevrem, eleven—as the siege of Sarajevo destroys their happy lives, forcing them to flee to Toronto. Exploring how violence and diaspora shape youths who fight the status quo with their own misguided violence, Bastards promises a new thread in Balkan literature. But despite many lyrical passages, a solid plot framework, and historical accuracy, this ambitious novel reflects some unfortunate choices that diminish its power. . . Its aim exceeding its execution, it resembles less a divine comedy than a well-intentioned Hollywood film." - Michele Levy, North Carolina A&T University

This book was reviewed in the November 2015 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if a book set in the 1990's can be considered historical fiction, but that's what I'm labeling it.

Jevrem grows up in the midst of the Bosnian War - where fear, violence and loss are a daily part of life. After his family loses almost everything, they relocate in Canada. However, it seems that the war molded Jevrem irrecoverably. Engaging in acts of violence for pure amusement, Jevrem becomes a criminal that cannot be controlled. Those who have read A Clockwork Orange will be reminded of Alex DeLarge in Jevrem's senseless crime sprees.

Little Bastards in Springtime will make a great book club selection, as there is much to discuss: the effects of war on children, post-traumatic stress disorder, refugee rights and much more.

[Alex Handyside · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this.
You'd think the antics of an 11 year-old in pre-war Sarajevo would be interesting, but the first 1/3 of the book isn't. I almost dumped the book then. We learn about some interesting characters, but little else. So I persevered.
Then when war breaks out and just when it could start getting interesting, the author cuts it short! Arghh.
We resume the story a few years later when he's in a refugee gang in Toronto - again, too long & not very interesting (or likeable). It's only when his grandmother dies that the character comes to life.
The best parts are too short - again. So frustrating.

[Stepan Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A searing story of war, loss and the possibility of redemption. From a harrowing boyhood during the siege of Sarajevo, to a drugged, criminal adolescence in the St. Clair West neighbourhood of Toronto, to the horrors of a juvenile detention centre, to a cross-continent hitch-hike toward a new start, Katja Rudolph's first novel propels us relentlessly yet not hopelessly through one boy's personal experience of the disintegration of a cosmopolitan nation and his tentative, often misguided efforts to rebuild a meaningful world in which to live.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might not have picked this up myself, but read it when I received it as a Christmas gift a few weeks ago. I had read Lew MacKenzie's book "Peacekeeper" about his experiences with UNPROFOR back in the '90s and I was quite interested to read this fictional account of a boy in Sarajevo and his life as an immigrant to Canada after. His relationship with his grandmother and her storytelling was I found both enduring and compelling. And I especially enjoyed some of the characters he encountered in the later part of the novel.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katja Rudoph's Little Bastards In Springtime is a book which has stayed with me. I became deeply connected to the characters and wondered about them when I wasn't reading the book. It was a brilliant story which played out through gesture, touch, taste, sound and visuals. I felt like I inhabited Jevrem's skin. The writing is strong and direct while being, at the same time, most tender. Some sentences are almost too beautiful to bear. Love, resilience, loyalty, survival. Big themes expressed through the most human of experiences. This is a must read.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is funny how books can make you look back on life. I remember people talking about the war in Sarajevo but nothing about the why. This book made me think about why countries get involved in things and what happens afterwards.
I found the descriptions of life in Toronto interesting. I worked in the area that Jevrem lived in and could recognize some of the setting references. The idea of being able to zoom anywhere in the city amused me.

[Raffaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspective of war told from an 11 year old's view. The effects it has on him as he grows through teenage years are vividly described. The first half of the book I really enjoyed the depth of the characters, and loved Baka. The second half I found tedious and disjointed...but maybe that was the intent?

[Leyla Devletli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bu kitabı okurken yazar birçok defa yüzünüze tokatı indiriyor. Savaş ve savaş sonrası savaşın etkilerini 11 yaşında olan Jevrem 'den dinliyorsunuz. Jevrem ' in yok olup gitmekle doğruyu bulma arasında geçen macerası.Böyle bir dönemde yakınlarımızda bu kadar olay yaşanıyorken herkesin okuması gerektiğini düşünüyorum . Ancak okuyarak aydınlıklara ulaşabiliriz ya da bu döngü böyle devam edip gider.

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character and narrator, Andric, grows up in Sarajevo during a time of war. The trauma of the bombings, war, and loss of family and friends stays with him as his family moves to Canada where he takes up a life of teen crime. The novel documents how the PTSD continues to plague his life in a new country and how he seeks to cope with his losses.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was gifted this book by the publisher as a galley copy and have only just gotten around to reading it. This is a wonderful window into the Bosnia/Serbian conflict. Well worth the read and will stick with you.

[Shannon White · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times, this book felt raw and authentic however at many other times contrived and unrealistic. The story just didn't captivate me and often my attention waned. Timely subject matter -refugees, PTSD, etc.

[Carolynmmc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of really good insights into what happens to adolescents in a war zone..very thought provoking

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty raw. Great book. My only complaint is that it starts to drag at the end and ends a bit flat. But the bulk of it is very compelling.

[Bahar006 · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://adreamreader.blogspot.com.tr/2...

[Luci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read; disturbing; sad.