About the writer
Nermin Bošnjak is an oral historian and travel writer. He is interested in researching the various human destinies, the wealth of cultures, the phenomenon of human perseverance, the ups and downs in the lives of absolutely every person on this planet, but also not giving up on their own dreams.
In his first book “The Unbreakable” he used Oral History as a research method for the first time. He considers this method of research to be the most authentic, because it directly examines the participants of an event or period in the human past.
As someone who has gone through many challenges in his life, he is interested in finding just such people, who are aware of the reality of life and are ready to face it.
Nermin is interested in a wide range of people, from the successful and accomplished, who certainly did not reach this success exclusively through an upward trajectory, to those who find satisfaction in their lives in the small things that mean life, such as a warm home, family, friends, and who are quite often happier than some seemingly accomplished people.
He is actually searching for the ultimate wisdom and meaning of life.
He believes that just by listening to people, you can write incredible books, and he really agrees with the phrase “Life writes novels”.
about the first book "the unbreakable"
This book is about the perseverance of 17 people who survived the longest siege of a capital city in human history and, despite all losses, managed to stay on their life path. In addition to the war, which is the central theme of the book, as the author I tried to somehow convey how much shock these people went through, when they came out of the golden eighties of the city of Sarajevo directly into the worst possible horror, and then, when everything was finally over and freedom was welcomed in people’s heads, how they endured the disappointment with the state in which society finds itself to this day. The book was written using the Oral history research method, which involves examining the direct participants in an event or period in history. Precisely because of the authenticity of the testimonies of people who testify on a part of the past through personal experience, many historians consider this type of research to be the most accurate representation of a part of history. For learning about this way of dealing with human history, I owe a debt of gratitude to Prof. Amila Kasumović, PhD, who explained to us, the students of the Department of History at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, what the advantages and disadvantages of this way of research are. I should mention that I used the method of retelling the words of my interlocutors, leaving only some expressions and slangs specific to them, and certainly without touching the authenticity of their statement. I believe that many of you, reading the book, will recognize a part of your own life, because this is really a display of all the ups and downs that a person goes through in one lifetime. The aim of the book is actually my need, as someone who went through the horrors of war at an early age, to send a strong message of peace to all people who just want to live their short lives normally. It is a horrible fact that some even today do not hesitate to call for new bloodshed, all in order to preserve their positions of power. I hope that this book will bring readers some new insights into the futility of every war in human history, and that we will finally begin to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past.