Fragments of History: The Essays Behind the Stories delves into the hidden truths and haunting legacies of Srebrenica, unpacking the complex layers behind one of Europe’s darkest modern tragedies. Drawing on deep research and personal insight, these essays explore the roots of genocide, the urban-rural divide in former Yugoslavia, and the strategic use of Islamophobia to dehumanise Bosniaks.
They examine the erasure and resurgence of Muslim identity, the myth of interethnic harmony under Yugoslav socialism, and the role of women—as survivors, protestors, and preservers of memory. With clarity and conviction, this collection reveals the forces that shaped a nation’s trauma and the voices that continue to demand justice. Please be aware that trigger warnings could contain spoilers and so I have included them on my themes page For publicity information please view Fragments of History Media Kit below Sign up to my newsletter |
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Media Kit
Title: Fragments of History: The Essays Behind the Stories
Pub date: 1 November 2025
ISBN Print: 9781922871565
Genre: Essays
#FragmentsOfHistory #AmraPajalic #Srebrenica #BosnianGenocide #HistoricalFiction #CulturalMemory #NeverForget #CreativeNonfiction #HumanRights #GenocideStudies #PishukinPress
Lead in postWhat role does fiction play in shaping how we remember?
In Fragments of History, award-winning author Amra Pajalić examines how creative writing can preserve the memory of Srebrenica — and challenge denial through storytelling.
Combining research, reflection, and advocacy, this collection explores how literature can resist erasure and transform remembrance into action.
Fragments of History explores how literature can serve as an act of remembrance. Through historical essays grounded in academic research and personal reflection, Amra Pajalić examines the Bosnian genocide and the siege of Srebrenica, connecting cultural memory, justice, and the ethics of representation.
The collection demonstrates how fiction and creative practice can memorialise trauma, challenge denial, and educate future generations about human rights and historical truth.
Key themes:
Excerpt
Srebrenica as a Symbol
My argument that Srebrenica is a historically significant event is based on the concept of memorialisation as an essential function of historical novels. De Groot (2009) states that “novels have quite an odd historiography, continually suggesting that history is something which happens despite the actions of the individual but simultaneously celebrating the historically significant actions of that individual” (p. 83). This reflects the tension in historical fiction, where history seems to unfold beyond the control of individual actions, yet those same actions are highlighted as being historically significant.
My research represents specific historical perspectives and narratives of Bosnian identity within the context of the Srebrenica siege. As a Bosnian who lived through the communist era as a child in 1985-1989, I bring a particular lens to this interrogation. My lived experience informs my understanding of the complex and evolving nature of Bosnian identity during this period, which is vastly different from the identity of contemporary Bosnia. This thesis is also my opportunity to integrate the history of my people and the genocide within my writing to better connect with my culture.
In doing so, this research contributes to an increased and nuanced understanding of this conflict. Hikmet Karčić and Richard Newell (2023) argue that there is a need for “the continued study of the genocide” because there is “a real lack of awareness about the Bosnian Genocide,” consequently, we need “better education” (p. 25). Bosnian Genocide Studies explores the genocide through “the continued study of its roots, preparation, execution, and lingering aftermath” (Karčić and Newell 2023, p. 21). I hope that through my novel and thesis, as well as these essays, I contribute to the area of Bosnian Studies and “help bring Bosnian scholarship to a wide audience and ensure that voices of Bosnian (diaspora) scholars are heard” (Karčić and Newell 2023, p. 35).
This interrogation is essential, as historical novels are intricately involved in shaping the historical memory of Srebrenica. They contribute to how both current and future generations conceptualise the genocide and engage with broader questions of Bosnian identity. I argue that novels about Srebrenica are historical novels because this process of memorialisation is an essential function of this genre. In doing so, I deploy historian Pierre Nora’s theory of lieux de mémoire (Nora 1989, p. 7), a French term that means sites of memory, and argue that Srebrenica is a symbol of a collective memory where the cultural and national memory of what was Yugoslavia is preserved, commemorated and transformed.
Stijn Vervaet (2011), in his study Writing War, Writing Memory, builds upon the theoretical foundations of collective memory developed by Jan and Aleida Assmann. The Assmanns, in turn, draw on the work of French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who conceptualised memory as a “social product” (Assmann 1992, as cited in Vervaet, p. 2). As such collective memory is “distinct from history and consisting of the cultural representations of a certain group living in a certain area” (Assmann 1992 as cited in Vervaet 2011, p. 2). Using this theory Srebrenica helps to keep the memory of an important historical event of the genocide alive and plays a crucial role in how Bosniaks understand and relate to their past.
Furthermore, Assmann notes that “collective memory changes over time,” and “the memories of the group are formed in a fashion that allows them to be adjusted to contemporary ideas or presumptions and to the desires of the society” (Assmann 1992, 1999, as cited in Vervaet 2011, p. 3). When exploring Srebrenica and the way that collective memory has been constructed from before the war, during the war, and in the aftermath of the massacre we can see that the various political and ideological factors have influenced the collective memory.
Nora introduced the concept of lieux de mémoire in his work on how societies remember the past. He states that:
Our interest in lieux de memoire where memory crystallises and secretes itself has occurred at a particular historical moment, a turning point where consciousness of a break with the past is bound up with the sense that memory has been torn—but torn in such a way as to pose the problem of the embodiment of memory in certain sites where a sense of historical continuity persists. There are lieuxde memoire, sites of memory, because there are no longer milieux de memoire, real environments of memory (Nora 1989, p. 7).In applying Pierre Nora’s concept of lieuxde mémoire (sites of memory) to Srebrenica the town’s history and memory have been fractured by the genocide and transformed in the aftermath of the Bosnian War.
Author Bio:
Amra Pajalić is an award-winning author, educator, and PhD researcher of Bosnian heritage whose work explores how fiction represents the Bosnian genocide. She won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Civic Choice Award for her debut novel The Good Daughter, re-released as Sabiha’s Dilemma (Pishukin Press, 2022). Her memoir Things Nobody Knows But Me (Transit Lounge, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 National Biography Award. Her forthcoming novels and essay collections, including Time Kneels Between Mountains and Fragments of History, examine the legacy of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide through the lens of historical fiction and memory studies.
Social media handles
Website: http://www.amrapajalic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amrapajalicauthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmraPajalic
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amrapajalic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmraPajalicAuthor/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/amra-pajalic
Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3310015.Amra_Pajalic
Author Central: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B005C8AIDY
Newsletter sign up (receive a FREE ebook copy of Suicide Watch – Story 1 in The Cuckoo’s Song and young adult novella The Climb) https://www.amrapajalic.com/my-newsletter.html
BUY LINKS:
Pishukin Press:
Universal (Wide Print):
Goodreads link:
Please be aware that trigger warnings could contain spoilers and so I have included them on my themes page
Pub date: 1 November 2025
ISBN Print: 9781922871565
Genre: Essays
#FragmentsOfHistory #AmraPajalic #Srebrenica #BosnianGenocide #HistoricalFiction #CulturalMemory #NeverForget #CreativeNonfiction #HumanRights #GenocideStudies #PishukinPress
Lead in postWhat role does fiction play in shaping how we remember?
In Fragments of History, award-winning author Amra Pajalić examines how creative writing can preserve the memory of Srebrenica — and challenge denial through storytelling.
Combining research, reflection, and advocacy, this collection explores how literature can resist erasure and transform remembrance into action.
Fragments of History explores how literature can serve as an act of remembrance. Through historical essays grounded in academic research and personal reflection, Amra Pajalić examines the Bosnian genocide and the siege of Srebrenica, connecting cultural memory, justice, and the ethics of representation.
The collection demonstrates how fiction and creative practice can memorialise trauma, challenge denial, and educate future generations about human rights and historical truth.
Key themes:
- Srebrenica as a site of memory and memorialisation
- The intersection of literature, history, and justice
- Gendered trauma and women’s roles in war
- Historical fiction as ethical storytelling
- The pedagogical power of fiction in genocide studies
Excerpt
Srebrenica as a Symbol
My argument that Srebrenica is a historically significant event is based on the concept of memorialisation as an essential function of historical novels. De Groot (2009) states that “novels have quite an odd historiography, continually suggesting that history is something which happens despite the actions of the individual but simultaneously celebrating the historically significant actions of that individual” (p. 83). This reflects the tension in historical fiction, where history seems to unfold beyond the control of individual actions, yet those same actions are highlighted as being historically significant.
My research represents specific historical perspectives and narratives of Bosnian identity within the context of the Srebrenica siege. As a Bosnian who lived through the communist era as a child in 1985-1989, I bring a particular lens to this interrogation. My lived experience informs my understanding of the complex and evolving nature of Bosnian identity during this period, which is vastly different from the identity of contemporary Bosnia. This thesis is also my opportunity to integrate the history of my people and the genocide within my writing to better connect with my culture.
In doing so, this research contributes to an increased and nuanced understanding of this conflict. Hikmet Karčić and Richard Newell (2023) argue that there is a need for “the continued study of the genocide” because there is “a real lack of awareness about the Bosnian Genocide,” consequently, we need “better education” (p. 25). Bosnian Genocide Studies explores the genocide through “the continued study of its roots, preparation, execution, and lingering aftermath” (Karčić and Newell 2023, p. 21). I hope that through my novel and thesis, as well as these essays, I contribute to the area of Bosnian Studies and “help bring Bosnian scholarship to a wide audience and ensure that voices of Bosnian (diaspora) scholars are heard” (Karčić and Newell 2023, p. 35).
This interrogation is essential, as historical novels are intricately involved in shaping the historical memory of Srebrenica. They contribute to how both current and future generations conceptualise the genocide and engage with broader questions of Bosnian identity. I argue that novels about Srebrenica are historical novels because this process of memorialisation is an essential function of this genre. In doing so, I deploy historian Pierre Nora’s theory of lieux de mémoire (Nora 1989, p. 7), a French term that means sites of memory, and argue that Srebrenica is a symbol of a collective memory where the cultural and national memory of what was Yugoslavia is preserved, commemorated and transformed.
Stijn Vervaet (2011), in his study Writing War, Writing Memory, builds upon the theoretical foundations of collective memory developed by Jan and Aleida Assmann. The Assmanns, in turn, draw on the work of French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who conceptualised memory as a “social product” (Assmann 1992, as cited in Vervaet, p. 2). As such collective memory is “distinct from history and consisting of the cultural representations of a certain group living in a certain area” (Assmann 1992 as cited in Vervaet 2011, p. 2). Using this theory Srebrenica helps to keep the memory of an important historical event of the genocide alive and plays a crucial role in how Bosniaks understand and relate to their past.
Furthermore, Assmann notes that “collective memory changes over time,” and “the memories of the group are formed in a fashion that allows them to be adjusted to contemporary ideas or presumptions and to the desires of the society” (Assmann 1992, 1999, as cited in Vervaet 2011, p. 3). When exploring Srebrenica and the way that collective memory has been constructed from before the war, during the war, and in the aftermath of the massacre we can see that the various political and ideological factors have influenced the collective memory.
Nora introduced the concept of lieux de mémoire in his work on how societies remember the past. He states that:
Our interest in lieux de memoire where memory crystallises and secretes itself has occurred at a particular historical moment, a turning point where consciousness of a break with the past is bound up with the sense that memory has been torn—but torn in such a way as to pose the problem of the embodiment of memory in certain sites where a sense of historical continuity persists. There are lieuxde memoire, sites of memory, because there are no longer milieux de memoire, real environments of memory (Nora 1989, p. 7).In applying Pierre Nora’s concept of lieuxde mémoire (sites of memory) to Srebrenica the town’s history and memory have been fractured by the genocide and transformed in the aftermath of the Bosnian War.
Author Bio:
Amra Pajalić is an award-winning author, educator, and PhD researcher of Bosnian heritage whose work explores how fiction represents the Bosnian genocide. She won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Civic Choice Award for her debut novel The Good Daughter, re-released as Sabiha’s Dilemma (Pishukin Press, 2022). Her memoir Things Nobody Knows But Me (Transit Lounge, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 National Biography Award. Her forthcoming novels and essay collections, including Time Kneels Between Mountains and Fragments of History, examine the legacy of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide through the lens of historical fiction and memory studies.
Social media handles
Website: http://www.amrapajalic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amrapajalicauthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmraPajalic
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amrapajalic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmraPajalicAuthor/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/amra-pajalic
Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3310015.Amra_Pajalic
Author Central: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B005C8AIDY
Newsletter sign up (receive a FREE ebook copy of Suicide Watch – Story 1 in The Cuckoo’s Song and young adult novella The Climb) https://www.amrapajalic.com/my-newsletter.html
BUY LINKS:
Pishukin Press:
Universal (Wide Print):
Goodreads link:
Please be aware that trigger warnings could contain spoilers and so I have included them on my themes page
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