A review by rebeccahussey
Mostarghia by Maya Ombasic

The word “Mostarghia” is a combination of “nostaglia” and “Mostar,” the city in Bosnia Herzegovina where Maya Ombasic spent her early years. When civil war broke out in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, her family suddenly became refugees, fleeing first to Geneva, Switzerland, and then to Canada. Prompted by the death of her father, an outsized personality who loved Mostar and suffered deeply from exile, Ombasic explores their complicated relationship and describes her family’s experiences as refugees. The book is written in the second person, directed at Ombasic’s father, so it becomes a conversation with a lost loved one as well as a meditation on nations, cultures, and exile. Ombasic’s descriptions of her refugee experiences are fascinating and timely, and anybody who wants to think deeply about what happens when people are forced to leave their homelands will want to pick this book up.

https://bookriot.com/2019/08/18/august-indie-press-books/