Nowhere Man (Hemon novel)
 First edition cover design | |
| Author | Aleksandar Hemon |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Nan A. Talese |
Publication date | 17 September 2002 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 242 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-49924-8 |
| OCLC | 49531508 |
Nowhere Man is a 2002 novel by Aleksandar Hemon named after the Beatles song "Nowhere Man".[1][2] The novel (subtitled The Pronek Fantasies) centers around the character of Jozef Pronek, a Bosnian refugee, who was already the subject of Hemon's novella Blind Jozef Pronek & Dead Souls published in his short story collection The Question of Bruno (2000).
The novel comprises a series of vignettes telling the story of a character named Jozef Pronek, a Ukrainian born and raised in Bosnia. Pronek's biography is related by multiple narrators. The book can be divided into three sections. The first section describes Pronek's peaceful childhood in 1980s Sarajevo. The second section follows Pronek as he is a university student in Kyiv in the Soviet Union at the time of the 1991 political turmoil (narrated by his dormitory roommate Victor Plavchuk). In the third part of the book Pronek is an immigrant in Chicago, where he works in a series of low-paid jobs including working as a Greenpeace canvasser, which enables him to observe the lives of middle-class Chicagoans. Some of these elements are reflective of the author's own life.
The novel's final chapter, spanning the years 1900 to 2000, is a departure from Pronek's adventures and recounts the story of a Russian White Army officer and his adventures in Harbin and Shanghai.
Reception
[edit]On Bookmarks January/February 2003 issue, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a 
(3.5 out of 5) based on critic reviews with a critical summary saying, "Still, most critics remain convinced that Hemon is a true artist of the written word, one to watch, one to admire".[3] The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and TLS reviews under "Love It" and Times, Sunday Times, and Independent On Sunday reviews under "Pretty Good".[4]
References
[edit]- ^ Jaggi, Maya (2003-06-28). "Haunted by the present". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-04-30.
- ^ "Nowhere Man | Kirkus Reviews". 1 September 2002.
- ^ "Nowhere Man" (PDF). Bookmarks. p. 52. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 Jul 2004. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
- ^ "Books of the moment: What the papers say". The Daily Telegraph. 12 Jul 2003. p. 162. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
External links
[edit]- Pronek Is Illuminated review by Gary Shteyngart (15 September 2002, New York Times Book Review)
- Nowhere Man review by Laura Miller (10 October 2002, Salon.com)
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