Five books that put you in Kosovo. Four are by writers from Kosovo and set there, starting with Bolla and Glimmer of Hope, Glimmer of Flame. The other is a wider pick, by someone who knows the place well.
Kosovo's literature grew out of oral epic, above all the songs of the 1389 battle, which Albanian and Serbian singers both kept alive. Modern writing, mostly in Albanian, has been shaped by the repression of the 1990s and the 1999 war, and little of it has been translated into English.
Anna Di Lellio's The Battle of Kosovo 1389 gives English translations of the Albanian verses, with commentary. Flora Brovina, a Pristina paediatrician who was jailed in 1999, wrote the poems in Call Me by My Name. Ag Apolloni's Glimmer of Hope, Glimmer of Flame follows two women from Gjakova who lost their families in the war. Pajtim Statovci was born in Kosovo and writes in Finnish. He sets Bolla in Pristina on the eve of the war. My Cat Yugoslavia moves between 1980s Kosovo and a son who grows up as a refugee in Finland.
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In Pristina in 1995, a married Albanian man has an affair with a Serbian medical student, and the novel follows them both through the war and after it.
Two women from Gjakova who lost their families in the 1999 war tell their stories, woven together with the Greek myth of Niobe.
A bilingual Albanian–English collection by a Pristina paediatrician, poet and activist who was jailed by Serbian authorities in 1999.
A woman's arranged marriage in 1980s Kosovo alternates with her son's lonely life as a gay refugee in Helsinki.
By long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well, or folk tales, poetry and history with a strong feel for Kosovo.
Presents Albanian oral epic verses about the 1389 battle, showing how Kosovo's memory and folk tradition are kept alive.
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