Bolla
Pajtim Statovci
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars
3.94
· 18 ratings · 240 pages · Published: 26 Aug 2019
April 1995. Arsim is a 24-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 Miloš, 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 Miloš’s unlikely affair is derailed by the outbreak of war, which sends Arsim’s fledgling family abroad and timid Miloš 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 Miloš 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.
Tagged as:
- romance 4
- lgbtq+ 3
- historical 3
- historical fiction 3
- war/big battles 3
- literary fiction 2
- men loving men 2
- drama 2
- on the move 2
- dark 1
- military, war & conflict 1
- action / adventure 1
- Add topics
- format - reader age
- audiobook 2
- book 1
- adult fiction 1
- content warnings
- abuse 2