{"product_id":"the-bridge-on-the-drina-9788673466361","title":"The Bridge on the Drina","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe committee that awarded the Nobel prize for literature to Ivo Andric in 1961 cited the epic force of The Bridge on the Drina  first published in Serbo-Croat in 1945  as justification for its award. The award was indeed justified if  as I believe  The Bridge on the Drina is one of the most perceptive  resonant  and well-wrought works of fiction written in the twentieth century. But the epic comparison seems strained. At any rate  if the work is epic  it remains an epic without a hero. The bridge  both in its inception and at its destruction  is central to the book  but can scarcely be called a hero. It is  rather  a symbol of the establishment and the overthrown in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That civilization was Ottoman - radically alien to  and a conscious rival of  both Orthodox Russia and the civilization of western Europe. It was predominantly Turkish and Moslem  but also embraced Christian and Jewish communities  along with such outlaw elements as Gypsies. All find a place in Andrics book  and with an economy of means that is all but magical  he presents the reader with a thoroughly credible portrait of the birth and death of Ottoman civilization as experienced in his native land of Bosnia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45273313706037,"sku":"ByrdShop_8673466369","price":99.05,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9788673466361.jpg?v=1780488056","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-bridge-on-the-drina-9788673466361","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}