Aleksander Hemon Book Signing May 18, 2009

Aleksandar Hemon
Reading & Signing for “Love and Obstacles”
5/18 at 12:30 pm
Borders, 150 N State St, Chicago (312) 606-0750

A new book of linked stories by the author of the National Book Award finalist The Lazarus Project. What links the stories in Love and Obstacles is the narrator, a young man who—like Hemon himself—was raised in Yugoslavia and immigrated to the United States. The stories of Love and Obstacles are about that coming of age and the complications—the obstacles—of growing up in a Communist but cosmopolitan country, and the disintegration of that country and the consequent uprooting and move to America in young adulthood. But because it’s Aleksandar Hemon, the stories extend far beyond the immigrant experience; each one is punctuated with unexpected humor and spins out in fabulist, exhilarating directions, ultimately building to an insightful, often heartbreaking conclusion. Woven together, these stories comprise a book that is, genuinely, as cohesive and powerful as any fiction— achingly human, charming, and inviting