Bøger af 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 1980s 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, improbablyhe is terrified of snakeshe lets roam his apartment. Then, during a visit to a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat who moves in with him and his snake. It is this witty, charming, manipulative creature who starts Bekim on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons and make sense of the magical, cruel, incredible history of his family. And it is this that, in turn, enables him finally, to open himself to true lovewhich he will find in the most unexpected place

From the author of National Book Award finalist Crossing comes an unlikely love story in Kosovo with unpredictable consequences that reverberates throughout a young man's life-a dazzling tale full of fury, tenderness, longing, and lust."Devastating in the most beautiful ways. From the first pages you realize that you are in the hands of an absolute artist."-Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, BabyApril 1995. Arsim is a twenty-four-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. In a café he meets a young man named Milo, a Serb. Before the day is out, everything has changed for both of them, and within a week two milestones erupt in Arsim's married life: his wife announces her first pregnancy and he begins a life in secret.After these fevered beginnings, Arsim and Milo's unlikely affair is derailed by the outbreak of war, which sends Arsim's fledgling family abroad and timid Milo spiraling down a dark path, as depicted through chaotic journal entries. Years later, deported back to Pristina after a spell in prison and now alone and hopeless, Arsim finds himself in a broken reality that makes him completely question his past. What happened to him, to them, exactly? How much can you endure, and forgive?Entwined with their story is a re-created legend of a demonic serpent, Bolla; it's an unearthly tale that gives Arsim and Milo a language through which to reflect on what they once had. With luminous prose and a delicate eye, Pajtim Statovci delivers a relentless novel of desire, destruction, intimacy, and the different fronts of war.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTFrom 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, Agimwho is facing his own realizations about his gender and sexualitygives 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 homein a foreign country and even in one's own bodywill 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.

Jugoslavien i 1980’erne: En ung muslimsk kvinde vokser op i en lille landsby og bliver bortgiftet til en mand, hun knap nok har mødt. Hun forsøger, så godt hun kan, at være en god kone, men ægteskabet er voldeligt og fyldt med udfordringer. Da der udbryder krig, og familien bliver tvunget til at flygte til Finland, bliver alting forandret.Helsinki i dag: Kvindens søn forsøger at finde sig til rette i det kolde finske samfund. Som immigrant og homoseksuel føler han sig som en outsider, og desperat efter selskab køber han en kongeboa. Men det er katten, som han møder på en bar en fugtig aften, der kommer til at ændre hans liv. Den fører ham ud på en rejse til Kosovo på jagt efter rødder og tilhørsforhold. Min kat Jugoslavien er en magisk og kraftfuld debutroman fra en af Finlands nye, unge litterære stemmer.