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A review by jdintr
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci
4.0
My Cat Yugoslavia is a beautifully woven tapestry of a novel, tracing two arcs: the story of a refugee boy who grows up in Finland to find love in his new culture, and the story of a girl, married as a teenager in Kosovo, who wends her way through domestic and international wars.
I'm fascinated by Kosovo because I worked in Albania during the NATO-Serb War in 1999, serving World Food Programme rations to refugees in the nation's southwest. I was there only three, short months, but I packed into it learning of a lifetime. Twenty years later, my daughter volunteered for the Peace Corps in Kosovo, and in my first Christmas away from her, I bought this book, read it, and sent it along to her.
I guess that's why I loved the wider lens that Statovci uses to illustrate his culture, weaving specific events from his country's history (the death of Tito, wars in Bosnia and Kosovo) with the development of his central character. This isn't just a gay, coming-to-terms-with-love story (it's actually remarkable how little his conservative, Muslim culture affects the protagonist, although Statovci illustrates the Kosovar mentality toward homosexuality in others' behavior in a visit the protagonist makes to Pristhina at the story's climax).
I also loved the way Statovci used allegory to illustrate key themes. Cats are used to show key relationships in the book (save for the first and last one). Showing prejudice spewing from the mouth of a cat, is a nice way to avoid Finnish culture in general. And I cannot think of a better analogy of the stranglehold of culture on a refugee who is trying to transition to a new one than a snake that lurks around the house.
This is a remarkable book that deserves all the readers it can get!
I'm fascinated by Kosovo because I worked in Albania during the NATO-Serb War in 1999, serving World Food Programme rations to refugees in the nation's southwest. I was there only three, short months, but I packed into it learning of a lifetime. Twenty years later, my daughter volunteered for the Peace Corps in Kosovo, and in my first Christmas away from her, I bought this book, read it, and sent it along to her.
I guess that's why I loved the wider lens that Statovci uses to illustrate his culture, weaving specific events from his country's history (the death of Tito, wars in Bosnia and Kosovo) with the development of his central character. This isn't just a gay, coming-to-terms-with-love story (it's actually remarkable how little his conservative, Muslim culture affects the protagonist, although Statovci illustrates the Kosovar mentality toward homosexuality in others' behavior in a visit the protagonist makes to Pristhina at the story's climax).
I also loved the way Statovci used allegory to illustrate key themes. Cats are used to show key relationships in the book (save for the first and last one). Showing prejudice spewing from the mouth of a cat, is a nice way to avoid Finnish culture in general. And I cannot think of a better analogy of the stranglehold of culture on a refugee who is trying to transition to a new one than a snake that lurks around the house.
This is a remarkable book that deserves all the readers it can get!