“This is the story of my childhood and my war.” Tijan Sila was ten years old when war broke out in Bosnia in 1992. With Sarajevo in flames, the boy he then was, became a young man forced to rummage through the ruins of the bombed city to collect left-behind belongings of those who have fled or died to exchange for food on the black market. Brutally honest, but vulnerable and tender, Sila tells of life and survival in war, and of people abruptly deprived of their humanity. “Sila (…) genuinely enrichs German literature“ (Berliner Zeitung).