Vedran Smailovic was a cellist in the Sarajevo String Quartet and played with the Sarajevo Opera, the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Theater of Sarajevo. In 1992, during the siege of Sarajevo, he honoured each of 22 people, who were killed by a mortar attack while waiting in a bread line, by playing on the same spot for 22 days. The residents of Sarajevo came to listen to him and left flowers on the spot.

Steven Galloway, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of British Columbia, has woven stories of three people in this novel. Arrow is the pseudonym for a young woman who is sent by the army, unknown to the cellist or the civilians, to protect the cellist from snipers. Kenan goes every two or three days to get water from a source across town, walking many miles and not knowing which bridge is safest to cross the river. Through his trip and thoughts, the life of people in the besieged city is revealed. Likewise, Dragan works in a bakery and crossing at an intersection becomes a debate within himself - is there a sniper taking aim at people who cross and when will the shot come. He is thankful that his wife and son are out of the city. Both these men pass the cellist playing each day and see people standing listening and drawing strength from the musician's courage. There are many examples given to show the determination of the population such as a young woman risking her life to take her dead mother's medicine to another person who needs it and can't get it.

Galloway visited Sarajevo during the writing of this novel. He walked Kenan's route with someone who had been in the city during the siege and could give him details of what life was like. Using this experience, Galloway uses simple and elegant prose to show how war affects everyday citizens.

Unfortunately, Mr. Smailovic, who lives in Ireland now, is very angry about the publication of this work, reports Time Online, even though he has accepted a piece written by David Wilde called The Cellist of Sarajevo and recorded by Yo Yo Ma and a song by folk singer John McCutcheon written in his honour titled In the Streets of Sarajevo. In the literary field, he worked with Canadian author, Elizabeth Wellburn, to create a children's book Echoes from the Square. The author understandably is distressed by this, having hoped the musician would be pleased. The book has become an international bestseller with rights sold in 30 countries. Film rights have been sold to Hollywood.