AW: Book Cover

Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3

The Cellist of Sarajevo

know where she is hiding. She quickly escapes as Steven Galloway shells begin hitting the building. Kenan also lives in Sarajevo. He and his family have run out of water. This means he will have to undertake the difficult and dangerous task of going to collect water from a brewery in another part of the city. He sets off with several empty plastic bottles to cross the town. Meanwhile, another inhabitant, Dragan, reminisces about the good old times before the war. He also has to cross the city to get food from a bakery.

Chapter 2: On his way to collect water, Kenan walks through destroyed neighbourhoods and remembers his life before the war. He notices that some people seem unaffected by the war, seeing that they are fat and drive expensive cars. Many people believe there is a tunnel to the outside world, and that these men have access to food and other things through it. Arrow’s commander, Nermin Filipovic, has asked to see her. When Arrow About the author became a sniper, she had insisted on choosing her Stephen Galloway was born on 13 July 1975 in own targets. Her boss had been happy with this Vancouver and later brought up in Kamloops, arrangement, until now. He takes Arrow to see the British Columbia. His first novel, Finnie Walsh, cellist play at the bombsite. He tells her the man is was published in 2000, and his second, in danger, and he wants Arrow to lie in wait and to Ascension, in 2003. The Cellist of Sarajevo kill the enemy sniper who he is sure will come. (2008) is his third novel. He lives with his wife and two daughters in New Westminster. Chapter 3: On his way to the bakery, Dragan meets Emina, a friend of his wife. They talk about their Summary families and about the war. Dragan regrets not leaving the city with his wife, but Emina is Chapter 1: It is 1992, and the inhabitants of the convinced that staying was the right thing to do. city of Sarajevo are living in terrible conditions. Dragan is pessimistic about their chances of survival They are surrounded on all sides by a hostile and of foreign military help arriving. He then begins army. The snipers of this army are continually to cross a road alone. A bullet narrowly misses his firing into the town and killing people. No food head and he runs back to Emina. Arrow returns to can get in and there is hardly any electricity. One the place where the cellist plays. She observes the inhabitant is a once-famous cellist. When times nearby buildings and chooses a good hiding place. are really bad, he takes up his instrument and She identifies three possible places the sniper could plays a piece called Albinoni’s Adagio. To him it position himself, and sits down and waits. The cellist represents hope that something good can come comes out at his usual time. Arrow sees a hole in the out of the war. One day, he looks out of his plastic sheet covering a window opposite her and a window at a crowd of people in the street. The shadow move behind it. The cellist finishes playing next minute a bomb explodes in the middle of the and returns home. Arrow can’t understand why the group, killing twenty-two people. The next day, sniper didn’t shoot. he goes to spot where the bomb had gone off, and starts to play the Adagio. He will do this everyday for the next twenty-two days. Another inhabitant Chapter 4: Emina decides it is safe to cross the is a woman who uses the name Arrow to hide her road and starts to run. She is hit in the arm by a true identity. She is a sniper but she is on the side bullet and thrown to the ground. A young man of the town. She is hiding in a building preparing picks her up and brings her back to Dragan. At to kill some soldiers she can see on a nearby hill. the same time a man in a hat is shot dead. Arrow She shoots one of them but realises that the men is once again in her hiding place. As the cellist

Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3

The Cellist of Sarajevo is playing, she notices movement in a window. cameraman waiting to film. Dragan is horrified to Seconds later a bullet shatters against the wall see that the body of the dead man with the hat is behind her. She decides to play dead. The still lying in the road. He does not want Sarajevo following day, she is back at her position. This to be seen around the world as a place where time she sees the sniper and is puzzled why he is dead bodies are left in the street. Under gunfire, not taking aim at the cellist. Then she realises he he drags the dead man to the side of the road. is enchanted by the music. She briefly feels some sort empathy for the man but reminds Chapter 7: After four days, Kenan has to make herself that he has probably killed hundreds of another trip to get water. He is tired of being in people. She takes aim, fires, and he falls to the constant danger and of living in the ruins of his floor. Kenan reaches the brewery and as he is beloved city. But he has hope and he knows that filling his bottles, two shells explode near him. the cellist plays to give people hope too. Today is He is knocked to the ground and when he stands the last day he will play. Dragan also has hope of up he hears people screaming and sees many a better future. As he is crossing a road, he dead bodies lying in the street. There is nothing realises he isn’t running. He knows he should but he can do and so starts his dangerous journey then a feeling of defiance comes over him. He home. thinks to himself that while he is walking, he is alive again. He has his dignity restored. Arrow Chapter 5: Emina is taken away to the hospital watches the cellist play for the last time in front of and Dragan sits down to think. He has a guilty many people. The music moves her deeply as she conscience about not helping her when she was laments the terrible series of events that led to the shot. Then, he imagines himself escaping through dreadful situation they are all in. The cellist the tunnel to freedom and to his wife and son in finishes, begins to cry, and slowly moves back Italy. But he knows it is freedom in Sarajevo he inside his building, after leaving his bow on the really wants. Arrow has another meeting with her pile of flowers on the ground. Arrow takes her boss. This time he tells her she should stop being gun and she too puts it on the flowers. Later, back a sniper and disappear. He hints he is in danger in her room, she hears some men kicking the door himself. She leaves the building and a few in. At that moment, she says, ‘My name is Alisa.’ minutes later there is an explosion. A bomb has destroyed the building and killed her boss. Later Background and themes that night, Arrow is in bed when three armed men pay her a visit. They take her to a café to meet The Yugoslavian conflict: The country known as their boss, Edin Karaman. He tells her she is Yugoslavia was created after World War II. It was a relieved of her duty of protecting the cellist and union of several different ethnic and religious groups. that she is work for him from now on. When its leader Marshall Tito died in 1980, the union began to break up. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in March 1992. This angered Chapter 6: On a visit to a market, Kenan the Serb population and led to the longest siege of a discovers that the tunnel everyone talked about capital city in the history of modern warfare. was in fact being used to transport goods in and out of Sarajevo, and that some people are making a lot of money. Leaving the market, he follows The power of music: The people of Sarajevo lived the sound of music until he is in front of the through a dreadful period of their lives. However, cellist. The music has an uplifting effect on even when the situation seemed most desperate, the Kenan and he daydreams that his city is not in music played by a cellist lifts them out of despair, if ruins; the people aren’t starving or deeply sad. only momentarily. They remember their city before The cellist stops playing and reality intrudes on the war and this gives them hope for the future. Kenan’s dream. Arrow is taken to a tall building and introduced to Hasan. He orders her to kill an Making money from war: When the majority old man in the street below. Arrow refuses on the of the population was on the brink of starvation, grounds the man is not a soldier and is not there was a small minority who profited from harming anyone. Hasan replies the man is related the situation by selling free food donations. to the enemy soldiers. Still, Arrow refuses to shoot, and leaves the building. Dragan is back at the spot where Emina was shot. There is a

Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3

The Cellist of Sarajevo

others can guess the profession in less than Discussion activities twenty questions, they win. See Discussion activities key for example questions. Chapter 1 After reading Before reading 5 Discuss: Put the students in small groups and 1 Discuss: Tell the students to read the tell them they are going to talk about jobs. Ask Introduction. Then put them in small groups them to think about the following questions: to talk about living in a city under siege. How many jobs have you had? What would be Ask them to think about the following your best job? What would be your worst job? questions: Would children still go to school? Do you think some people, like footballers and How could people heat and light their pop stars, are paid too much money? Are there houses without electricity? How could they some jobs only men or only women can do? find food? Do you think people would still work? Would people still use normal money? Chapter 3 While reading (p. 6, after ‘He thinks they are now in Italy.’) While reading (p. 17, after ‘They’ll have to 2 Role play: Put the students in pairs and tell them help us.’) they are going to act out a conversation between 6 Write: Put the students in pairs. Tell them Dragan and his wife, Raza, just before she they are going to write a letter to the outside leaves. She wants to stay with him and he thinks world explaining the situation in the city. it is best if she goes. See Discussion activities They are also going to say what they want key for an example start to the conversation. the world to do to help them. Students read out their letter to the rest of the class. The After reading class then votes for the best letter. 3 Write and guess: Write The musician took After reading the little piece of music and worked on it for ten years. on the board. Elicit which word is 7 Game: Tell the students that there are six wrong from the students (twelve not ten.) words in Chapter 3 that are words for things Now students choose a sentence from people use to make things. Put the students in Chapter 1 and rewrite it changing one word. pairs and tell them they have to find the words Students walk around the classroom, reading as quickly as possible. The fastest pair wins. out their sentences and the other students have to identify and correct the mistake.

Chapter 4

Chapter 2 While reading (p. 28, after ‘Together they lift the bodies to the back and drive away.’) While reading (p. 10, after ‘He sees a man 8 Write and say: Put the students in pairs. that he knows, a soldier.’) Tell them they are going to write a TV news 4 Write and game: Put the students in groups report about what happened at the brewery. of four. Tell them to write down all the Then they are going to give their report to names of jobs and professions they know in the rest of the class. It has to be quick and English. Put their suggestions on the board exciting and can include interviews with and add some of your own. Tell them they people near the brewery at the time. are going to play Twenty Questions. Student A thinks of a profession in English. The After reading other students have to guess the profession 9 Pair work: Write the following words on by asking questions. Student A can only the board: stomach, wall, 4 o’clock, streams, reply ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Sometimes’. If the crying, thirty metres, trips. Ask the students

Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3

The Cellist of Sarajevo

talk and write in pairs to say how these words were used in Chapter 4. Chapter 6

While reading (p. 37, after ‘Kenan starts to feel better as the music reaches inside him.’) Chapter 5 12 Discuss: Put the students in pairs and ask them to discuss the following: What types of While reading (p. 30, after ‘He was too music do you like? What would your life be frightened.’) like without music? What music can change 10 Write and discuss: Put the students in small the way you feel? Does your country have groups and ask them to make a list of as its own type of music? many things as they can that people can be frightened of. Put their suggestions on the After reading board and add some of your own. Then ask 13 Write: Ask the students to write a summary them to talk about the following: Are you of Chapter 6. Tell them the summary must frightened of anything? When was the last be exactly fifty words long, not one more or time you felt really frightened? What’s the less. They then read out their stories to the most frightening film you have ever seen? rest of the class who vote for the best one.

After reading 11 Write and guess: Put students in pairs and ask them to choose a short paragraph from Chapter 7 Chapter 5. Tell then to write it again, making 14 Discuss: Put the students in small groups to five changes to words in the text. Students discuss these questions about the book: Did you then read out their paragraphs to the other enjoy the book? Did you learn a lot? Who was students, who have to identify the mistakes. your favourite person? Who do you think was the bravest person?