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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the name of the man who lives in the apartment Sem and his family used to live in in Phoenix?

2. In "Red Bandana," what is a side effect of the medication Sem is taking?

3. When did Ales Debeljak visit Sem and his family in Washington, DC?

4. What is the name of the short film Sem remembers at the end of "Me'Med"?

5. How old was Harun when he was asked to play Hamlet at the Sarajevo Youth Theater?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was Ilija Ladin, and what did Sem say about him?

2. What happens when Sem tries to get a hotel room on page 60?

3. What is Arcosanti?

4. In "Red Bandana," what conversation does Sem remember having with his doctor during a routine six-month checkup?

5. With whom does Sem share a room when he is moved out of intensive care into a hospital ward?

6. What happens when Sem arrives at the hospital?

7. How does Sem describe Phoenix?

8. What does Sem remember about seeing Harun when he was a newborn in the hospital?

9. How does Sem describe nostalgia?

10. How did Harun injure his little finger, and why did his parents not take him to the hospital?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Genre is a means of classifying literature. What is the genre of the novel? Why is it fiction?

Essay Topic 2

Sem still writes in Bosnian, not English. What is Sem’s relationship to language? Why does he consider himself to be a "prisoner of [his] language" (97)? Why does he still write in Bosnian?

Essay Topic 3

Both Sem and Harun’s lives have been affected by trauma. How have Sem and Harun’s lives been affected by trauma? How do they process the trauma they have experienced differently?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 861 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample