The Bridge on the Drina

Andrić watches four centuries of a small Bosnian town pass across one Ottoman bridge. The Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, thrown over the Drina in 1577, is the fixed point: the town gathers on its central terrace, the market grows from its foot, and empires rise and recede around it until the bridge itself is broken in the First World War. The map holds the bridge, the river, and the streets of Višegrad around them.

The townsfolk of Višegrad

The Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge

The bridge, 1577

Everything in the book turns on this crossing. A grand vizier born nearby orders a bridge of pale stone thrown over the Drina, eleven arches long, and for centuries it carries the road to Istanbul and the life of the town on its back. Andrić opens by explaining how it came to be built and why it mattered.

Chapters I-II

explicit The bridge is the novel's subject and is real and named: the Ottoman crossing of the Drina at Višegrad, built to 1577 and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2007.

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