In a city where books were burned in 1992, a 46-year-old poet wrote his poems surrounded by violence and contempt for humanity. The city was Sarajevo, besieged by the Bosnian Serbs, and the poet was Stevan Tontic, a Serb who remained in Sarajevo. "I wrote these poems in the dirtiest and worst of times, during a period of hatred, murder, and the displacement of people. I wrote them while waiting to be killed, severely injured, or humiliated in every possible way." Under the most adverse circumstances, Stevan Tontic held himself to high ethical and artistic standards: poetry should maintain its truthfulness amidst the massive media propaganda lies, retain its humanity in places of contempt for people, provide comfort in desolation, and offer aesthetic brilliance in filth.