SOURCE: An introduction to The Damned Yard and Other Stories, edited by Celia Hawkesworth, Forest Books, 1992, pp. v-ix.

In the following essay, Hawkesworth offers a thematic overview of the stories comprising The Damned Yard and Other Stories.

This selection of Andrić's short stories and the novella The Damned Yard highlights a number of recurrent themes from his work. Their primary setting is Bosnia, where Andrić spent the formative years of his life: he was born in Travnik on 9th October 1892, he spent his childhood in ViSegrad, near the border with Serbia, and his secondary school years in Sarajevo. Travnik, which was the seat of Ottoman power in Bosnia, is the setting of Andric's novel, The Days of the Consuls (previously published as Bosnian Story), while Višegrad provides the context for numerous short stories and the novel The Bridge on the Drina. While Andrić's work includes...