На Дрини ћуприја (Na Drini ćuprija)

the long version

A critically acclaimed novel, first published in 1945, describing historic and social events centring on a bridge across the River Drina at Visegrad in modern day Bosnia Herzegovina, originally built by the ruling Grand Vizier of Turkey. For almost four hundred years this bridge is crucial to the social life and wealth of the town’s citizens and equally vital to first the Turkish Empire and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Eventually Bosnia-Herzegovina becomes a republic in the new Yugoslavia, free for the first time in hundreds of years.