National Book Award for Translated Literature
CROSSING
Crossing follows two young people trying to flee Albania for Italy, shaping a story of exile, sexuality, gender, and self-invention. The narration shifts with each place of arrival, turning suspicion toward fixed identity into the form of the novel itself.
Work Information
To flee is both to survive and to remake the self again and again.
Bujar and Agim move west as family and state collapse around them. Albanian myth and changing names across Europe overlap, setting the desire to belong against the desire to escape belonging.
Review Summaries
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The novel is valued for its fluid narration and emotional range. Some readers find its unstable structure demanding, but that instability expresses the loneliness and self-defense of exile.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Pantheon
- Published
- 2019-04-02
- Pages
- 272 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 3.02 x 21.95 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781524747497
- ISBN-10
- 1524747491
- Price
- 3538 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Historical
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST From the acclaimed author of My Cat Yugoslavia: a stunning, incandescent new novel that speaks to identity, war, exile, love, betrayal, and heartbreak The 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, Agim—who is facing his own realizations about his gender and sexuality—gives 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 home—in a foreign country and even in one's own body—will 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.
PAJTIM STATOVCI was born in Kosovo in 1990 and moved with his family to Finland when he was two years old. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Helsinki. His first book, My Cat Yugoslavia, won the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for best debut novel and his second, Crossing, won the Toisinkoinen Literature Price. He received the 2018 Helsinki Writer of the Year Award. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram @Pajtimstatovci.
Reviews
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The words flow and you are soon taken to places and witnessing events in the life of the protagonist. The miserable life of a teenager in an Albania in full political transition is described in a Clear and powerful way. The author manages to hypnotise you with line after line and you go on this journey with Bihar the main character. I really enjoyed it and recommend it .
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I've never read a book like this. It's a beautiful, painful look at queer and trans love and living life as a refugee in the often indifferent EU. I read it in a weekend and clutched it to my heart when I finished.
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Another engaging and thought-provoking read, this time in translation from the original Finnish by a young but already award-winning Kosovar-born author. Familiarity with its settings is no prerequisite to appreciating it, but the fact that it takes place in cities including Rome, Tirana and Helsinki, all of which I know to one extent or another, definitely helps. It's also predicated on a purely literary conceit, in this case tying in with the central themes of identity and appearance.
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In some ways it reads like a Greek tragedy. Two boys off on an ill fated and poorly defined journey to find ‘better life’. They stumble. They fail. They set off to cross the sea in a boat. Buca ends up in Italy. Asim disappears. Buca wanders through Italy, New York City, and Helsinki. The journey does not bring happiness into his life. The quest centers on loss of Asim and accepting self identity. Am I a male or female. Is this quest successful? To me, no. At the end of the years long quest Buca returns home. But, home is not home anymore. In sections of the novel story telling teaches not just lessons. They are key to cultural and self affirmation. Through the telling of a story, Buca’s sadness for the loss of Asim, and how he was lost is revealed . Buca never settled on who he is, or what he wanted to be. Rather in the quest, Buca’s action lost his key to happiness. Which was to come out of ‘their’ new for ever life together.
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His story, as Bujar tells it, is unique -- an examination of the search for a home and gender identification, transcending borders. Starting in Albania and wending his way through, among others, Italy USA and Finland, it is almost a tryptik examination of various national attitudes toward Bujar and his gender fluidity. Some is devastating and some humorous, but for the most part, harrowing, and Bujar is not always sympathetic which makes it even more interesting. Sprinkled throughout are fables and tales of the supernatural, casting a mythic dust over Bujar's quest. The writing at times falls a bit flat, but that may be due to the fact that it has been translated from Finnish, a notoriously difficult language to reconcile.