Author Β» Pajtim Statovci. April Arsim is a twenty-two-year-old, recently married student at the University of Pristina, in Kosovo, keeping his head down to gain a university degree in a time and place deeply hostile to Albanians. Years later, deported back to Pristina after a spell in prison and now alone and hopeless, Arsim finds himself in a broken Crossing Pajtim Statovci Pajtim Statovci From the acclaimed author of My Cat Yugoslavia: a stunning, incandescent new novel that speaks to identity, war, exile, love, betrayal, and heartbreakThe death of head of state Enver Hoxha and the loss of his father leave Bujar growing up in the ruins of Communist Albania and of his own family.
Only his fearless best friend, Agimβwho is facing his own realizations about his gender and sexualityβgives him hope for the future. Together the two decide to leave everything behind and try their luck in Italy. But the struggle to feel at homeβin a foreign country and even in one's own bodyβwill have corrosive effects, spurring a dangerous search for new identities.
Steeped in a rich heritage of bewitching Albanian myth and legend, this is a deeply timely and deeply necessary novel about the broken reality for millions worldwide, about identity in all its complex permutations, and the human need to be seen.
My Cat Yugoslavia Pajtim Statovci Pajtim Statovci A love story set in two countries in two radically different moments in time, bringing together a young man, his mother, a boa constrictor, and one capricious cat. In s Yugoslavia, a young Muslim girl is married off to a man she hardly knows, but what was meant to be a happy match goes quickly wrong.
Soon thereafter her country is torn apart by war and she and her family flee. Years later, her son, Bekim, grows up a social outcast in present-day Finland, not just an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners, but a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only friend is a boa constrictor whom, improbablyβhe is terrified of snakesβhe lets roam his apartment.
