Aleksandar Hemon

Hemon was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia, to a father of partial Ukrainian descent and a Bosnian Serb mother.{{cite web |url=http://www.booksa.hr/specials/38 |title=Aleksandar Hemon u Leksikonu |date=August 31, 2007 |access-date=December 31, 2009 |language=hr |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091217081903/http://www.booksa.hr/specials/38 |archive-date=December 17, 2009 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} Hemon's great-grandfather, Teodor Hemon, came to Bosnia from Western Ukraine prior to World War I, when both countries were a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Hemon graduated from the University of Sarajevo and was a published writer in former Yugoslavia by the time he was 26.[http://www.pwf.cz/en/aleksandar-hemon/ 17th Prague Writer's Festival page: "Aleksandar Hemon,"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610191030/http://www.pwf.cz/en/aleksandar-hemon/ |date=June 10, 2007 }}

Since 1992 he has lived in the United States, where he found himself as a tourist and became stranded at the outbreak of the war in Bosnia. In the U.S. he worked as a Greenpeace canvasser, sandwich assembly-line worker, bike messenger, graduate student in English literature, bookstore salesperson, and ESL teacher. He earned his master's degree from Northwestern University in 1996.

He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation grant in 2004.

He published his first story in English, "The Life and Work of Alphonse Kauders" in Triquarterly in 1995, followed by "The Sorge Spy Ring," also in Triquarterly in 1996, "A Coin" in Chicago Review in 1997, "Islands" in Ploughshares in 1998, and eventually "Blind Jozef Pronek" in The New Yorker in 1999. His work also eventually appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. Hemon also has a bi-weekly column, written and published in Bosnian, called "Hemonwood" in the Sarajevo-based magazine, BH Dani (BH Days).

Hemon is currently a professor of creative writing at Princeton University,{{Cite web|url=https://arts.princeton.edu/people/profiles/ahemon/|title=Aleksandar Hemon|website=Lewis Center for the Arts|language=en-US|access-date=2018-09-24}} where he lives with his second wife, Teri Boyd, and their daughters Ella and Esther. The couple's second child, 1-year-old daughter Isabel, died of complications associated with a brain tumor in November 2010. Hemon published an essay, "The Aquarium," about Isabel's death in the June 13/20, 2011 issue of The New Yorker.

Hemon grew up near the Grbavica Stadium, and he is a supporter of the Željo, as the Sarajevo based football club FK Željezničar is affectionately called, with a membership.{{cite web |title=Željovci: Aleksandar Hemon |url=https://1921.ba/zeljovci-aleksandar-hemon-1789 |website=1921.ba |access-date=25 December 2021 |language=bs, en |date=29 March 2016}} He is also a supporter of Liverpool Football Club.

In 2000 Hemon published his first book, The Question of Bruno, which included short stories and a novella.

His second book, Nowhere Man, followed in 2002. Variously referred to as a novel and as a collection of linked stories, Nowhere Man concerns Jozef Pronek, a character who earlier appeared in one of the stories in The Question of Bruno. It was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award.

In June 2006, Exchange of Pleasant Words and A Coin were published by Picador.{{cite book|first=Aleksandar |last=Hemon|title=Exchange of Pleasant Words: And, A Coin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rY60AAAACAAJ|year=2006|publisher=Picador|isbn=978-0-330-44581-8}}

On 1 May 2008, Hemon released The Lazarus Project, inspired by the story of Lazarus Averbuch, which featured photographs by Hemon's childhood friend, photographer Velibor Božović. The novel was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award, and was named as a "New York Times Notable Book" and New York magazine's No. 1 Book of the Year.{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2008 |title=2008 National Book Awards Winners and Finalists, The National Book Foundation |publisher=Nationalbook.org |access-date=April 15, 2012}}

In May 2009, Hemon released a collection of stories, Love and Obstacles, which were largely written at the same time as he wrote The Lazarus Project.

In 2011, Hemon was awarded the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award chosen by the judges Jill Ciment, Salvatore Scibona, and Gary Shteyngart.

Hemon's first nonfiction book, The Book of My Lives, was released in 2013.

Hemon's novel The Making of Zombie Wars was released in 2015.{{Cite news|title = 'The Making of Zombie Wars,' by Aleksandar Hemon|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/books/review/the-making-of-zombie-wars-by-aleksandar-hemon.html|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 2015-06-02|access-date = 2016-01-10|issn = 0362-4331|first = David|last = Gilbert}}

He published his second work of non-fiction, My Parents: An Introduction, in 2019.

On August 20, 2019, it was announced that Hemon would co-write the script for The Matrix Resurrections alongside David Mitchell and Lana Wachowski. The film was released on December 22, 2021.{{Cite web|last=Kroll|first=Justin|date=2019-08-20|title='Matrix 4' Officially a Go With Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Lana Wachowski (EXCLUSIVE)|url=https://variety.com/2019/film/news/matrix-4-keanu-reeves-carrie-anne-moss-lana-wachowski-1203307955/|access-date=2021-08-27|website=Variety|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|last=D'Alessandro|first=Anthony|date=2020-10-06|title='The Batman' Flies To 2022 Post 'Dune' Drift, 'Matrix 4' Moves Up To Christmas 2021, 'Shazam! 2' Zaps To 2023 & More WB Changes – Update|url=https://deadline.com/2020/10/dune-drifting-away-from-december-to-october-2021-1234591593/|access-date=2021-08-27|website=Deadline|language=en-US}}

His latest novel The World and All That it Holds was published on February 2, 2023. It was the winner of the 2023 Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine, which honors the best American novel translated into French and published in France. (The book was published in France as Un monde de ciel et de terre by Calmann-Lévy, translated by Michèle Albaret-Maatsch.){{cite news |url=https://www.lesechos.fr/weekend/livres-expositions/le-grand-prix-de-litterature-americaine-2023-decerne-a-aleksandar-hemon-2028046 |title=Aleksandar Hemon, Grand prix de littérature américaine |first=Philippe |last=Chevilly |date=November 10, 2023 |work=Les Echos |language=French |access-date=March 30, 2024}}

{{Quote box |quote =Perhaps the esteemed Nobel Committee is so invested in the preservation of Western civilization that to it a page of Mr. Handke is worth a thousand Muslim lives. (...) For them, genocide comes and goes, but literature is forever.

|source = — A. Hemon, The New York Times{{cite news |last1=Hemon |first1=Aleksandar |title=Opinion - 'The Bob Dylan of Genocide Apologists' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/opinion/peter-handke-nobel-bosnia-genocide.html |access-date=17 May 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=15 October 2019 |language=en |quote =Perhaps the esteemed Nobel Committee is so invested in the preservation of Western civilization that to it a page of Mr. Handke is worth a thousand Muslim lives. Or it could be that in the rarefied chambers in Stockholm, Mr. Handke’s anxious goalie is far more real than a woman from Srebrenica whose family was eradicated in the massacre. The choice of Mr. Handke implies a concept of literature safe from the infelicities of history and actualities of human life and death. War and genocide, Milosevic and Srebrenica, the value of the writer’s words and actions at this moment in history, might be of interest to the unsophisticated plebs once subjected to murder and displacement, but not to those who can appreciate 'linguistic ingenuity' that 'has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.' For them, genocide comes and goes, but literature is forever.}}

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In October 2019, Hemon joined many intellectuals in an international public outcry against the decision of the Nobel Committee to award Peter Handke a Nobel Prize in Literature earlier that month (they opposed the award because of Handke's support of the late Slobodan Milošević and the author's Bosnian genocide denial). Hemon wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times, published October 15, criticizing the Nobel committee for its decision.

While in the United States, Aleksandar Hemon started working as a screenwriter, and collaborated with Lana Wachowski (the Wachowskis) and David Mitchell as co-writer on the finale of the TV show Sense8 and the film The Matrix Resurrections.{{Cite news|url=http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/27/sense8-production-begins-netflix-special/|title='Sense8': Production begins on Netflix special|work=EW.com|access-date=2018-01-21|language=en}}{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-transformative-experience-of-writing-for-sense8|title=The Transformative Experience of Writing for "Sense8"|last=Hemon|first=Aleksandar|date=27 September 2017|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=2017-09-27|issn=0028-792X}}{{Cite news|url=https://variety.com/2019/film/news/matrix-4-keanu-reeves-carrie-anne-moss-lana-wachowski-1203307955/|title='Matrix 4' Officially a Go With Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Lana Wachowski|last=Kroll|first=Justin|date=20 August 2019|work=Variety|access-date=2019-08-20}}

As an accomplished fiction writer who learned English as an adult, Hemon has some similarities to Joseph Conrad, which he acknowledges through allusion in The Question of Bruno, though he is most frequently compared to Vladimir Nabokov.{{cite web |first=Larry |last=Rohter |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/books/16hemo.html |title=Twice-Told Tales: Displaced in America |work=The New York Times |date=May 15, 2009 |access-date=May 31, 2019 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304014355/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/books/16hemo.html |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |df=mdy }} All of his stories deal in some way with the Yugoslav Wars, Bosnia, or Chicago, but they vary substantially in genre.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

• 2017 PEN America Jean Stein Grant For Literary Oral History, for How Did You Get Here?: Tales of Displacement
• 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Autobiography) shortlist for The Book of My Lives{{cite web |url=http://www.mhpbooks.com/nbcc-finalists-announced/ |title=NBCC finalists announced |work=Melville House Publishing |author=Kirsten Reach |date=January 14, 2014 |access-date=January 14, 2014 |archive-date=January 8, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170108161918/http://www.mhpbooks.com/nbcc-finalists-announced/ |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/announcing-the-national-book-critics-awards-finalists |title=Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013 |publisher=National Book Critics Circle |date=January 14, 2014 |access-date=January 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140115014055/http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/announcing-the-national-book-critics-awards-finalists |archive-date=January 15, 2014 |url-status=dead }}
• 2012 United States Artists Fellow Award.[http://www.unitedstatesartists.org United States Artists Official Website] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161021004554/http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/ |date=October 21, 2016 }}
• 2012 National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism, for "The Aquarium"{{cite web |url=http://www.magazine.org/asme/about_asme/asme_press_releases/2012-nma-finalists.aspx |title=American Society of Magazine Editors – National Magazine Awards 2012 Finalists Announced |publisher=Magazine.org |date=April 3, 2012 |access-date=April 15, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120625091300/http://www.magazine.org/asme/about_asme/asme_press_releases/2012-nma-finalists.aspx |archive-date=June 25, 2012 |url-status=dead }}
• 2011 PEN/W.G. Sebald Award{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/08/2011-pen-awards.html |date=August 11, 2011 |access-date=August 11, 2012 |magazine=The New Yorker |title=The 2011 PEN Honorees in The New Yorker |author=Stacey Mickelbart}}
• 2011 Premio Gregor von Rezzori for foreign fiction translated into Italian for The Lazarus Project (Il Progetto Lazarus), translated by Maurizia Balmelli (Einaudi)
• 2009 National Magazine Award for Fiction, for The New Yorker
• 2009 St. Francis College Literary Prize
• 2008 National Book Award, finalist, for The Lazarus Project
• 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award, finalist, for The Lazarus Project
• 2004 MacArthur Fellows Program from the MacArthur Foundation
• 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award, finalist, for Nowhere Man
• 2001 John C. Zacharis First Book Award, for The Question of Bruno

;Novels

• 2002 Nowhere Man, {{ISBN|9780330393508}}, {{OCLC|698889361}}
• 2008 The Lazarus Project, {{ISBN|9781440637490}}, {{OCLC|883331173}}
• 2015 The Making of Zombie Wars, {{ISBN|9780374203412}}, {{OCLC|953255017}}
• 2023 The World and All That It Holds, {{ISBN|9780374287702}}, {{OCLC|1344332737}}

;Short story collections

• 2000 The Question of Bruno, {{ISBN|9780385499231}}
• 2009 Love and Obstacles. Riverhead Books, {{ISBN|9781594488641}}.

;Nonfiction

• 2013 The Book of My Lives, {{ISBN|9780374115739}}
• 2019 My Parents: An Introduction / This Does Not Belong to You, {{ISBN|9780374217433}}.

;Essays

• 2014 "The Matters of Life, Death, and More: Writing on Soccer", {{ISBN|9780374713164}}
• 2015 "My Prisoner", {{ISBN|9780374713102}}

;Short fiction

• "The Liar," collected in The Book of Other People (Zadie Smith, editor)
• "The Conductor," collected in The Best American Short Stories 2006 (Ann Patchett, editor); first published in The New Yorker'', February 28, 2005
• {{cite magazine |date=November 28, 2005 |title=Love and obstacles |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=81 |issue=38 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/28/051128fi_fiction |access-date=October 20, 2010}}
• {{cite magazine |date=September 22, 2008 |title=The noble truths of suffering |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=84 |issue=29 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/09/22/080922fi_fiction_hemon |access-date=October 20, 2010}}

;Articles

• {{cite journal|date=Autumn 2008 |title=A shining monument of loss |journal=Granta |volume=103 |pages=29–31 |url=http://www.granta.com/Magazine/Granta-103/Subject-Object/Page-1 |access-date=October 20, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226032341/http://www.granta.com/Magazine/Granta-103/Subject-Object/Page-1 |archive-date=December 26, 2010 }}
• {{cite journal |date=Autumn 2009 |title=If God existed, He'd be a solid midfielder |journal=Granta |volume=108}}

;Editor

• 2010 Best European Fiction 2010
• 2010 Best European Fiction 2011
• 2011 Best European Fiction 2012
• 2012 Best European Fiction 2013

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• [http://www.aleksandarhemon.com Official website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110323105531/http://www.riverheadbooks.com/2009/01/aleksandar-hemon.html Hemon's page on U.S. publisher's website] Riverhead Books
• Hemon, Aleksandar. [https://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/09/22/080922fi_fiction_hemon "The Noble Truths of Suffering"] National Magazine Award-winning New Yorker story
• Hemon, Aleksandar [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27hemon.html "Genocide’s Epic Hero"] New York Times Op-Ed on Radovan Karadžić
• Hemon, Aleksandar [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/opinion/peter-handke-nobel-bosnia-genocide.html 'The Bob Dylan of genocide apologists'] New York Times Op-Ed on Peter Handke
• Hemon, Aleksandar [https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/03/070903fa_fact_hemon "Rationed"]
• Hemon, Aleksander [https://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/2014/04/the-tenants-an-introduction The Tenants: An Introduction] – Hemon provided the Introduction to the 2003 reissue of Bernard Malamud's 1971 novel The Tenants.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160111135853/http://www.graphicjournalism.org/europe/aleksandar-hemon Portrait] by Graphic Journalism]
• [https://www.guernicamag.com/features/hemon_1_15_12/ "National Subjects"] in Guernica, January 2012
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150611100450/http://bombmagazine.org/article/3175/aleksandar-hemon 2008 Bomb Magazine interview of Aleksandar Hemon by Deborah Baker]
• [https://cielohemon.bandcamp.com/ Cielo Hemon on Bandcamp]

{{Aleksandar Hemon}}

{{St. Francis College Literary Prize}}

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Category:1964 births

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American novelists

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Category:American male novelists

Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina emigrants to the United States

Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina novelists

Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina short story writers

Category:Exophonic writers

Category:MacArthur Fellows

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Category:Northwestern University alumni

Category:Northwestern University faculty

Category:Writers from Chicago

Category:St. Francis College Literary Prize

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Category:Bosnia and Herzegovina people of Ukrainian descent