Bolla

February 1, 2021

An Albanian studying in Kosovo, Arsim learns that his wife is pregnant even as he launches an affair with a Serbian man named Milos he meets at a caf�. Their relationship is disrupted by war and recalled years later by Arsim, alone, broke, and broken after time in prison. A Finlandia Prize winner; Statovci was a National Book Award finalist for Crossing.

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Starred review from May 31, 2021
Astounding writing distinguishes this portrait of love, loss, and war from Kosovo-born Finnish writer and National Book Award finalist Statovci (Crossing). The story alternates between the feverish recollections of Miloš and Arsim, whose paths cross briefly but indelibly in 1995 Kosovo, where Miloš, a Serb who is studying medicine, and Arsim, a married Albanian literature student, become lovers. Arsim recounts his disastrous marriage to Ajshe (she is “remarkably beautiful, silent as a drape”) and his doomed affair with Miloš, comparing himself and Miloš to “two birds that have crashed into the window,” and describes how mounting ethnic tensions forced him and his family to flee their home (“We Albanians are washed across the world like a handful of sand scattered into the sea,” he reflects). In nonlinear passages extending to 2004, Miloš riffs on the horrors he encountered during the Balkan wars and reveals his deteriorating mental state. Woven throughout is the myth of the snake-like bolla, a daughter of God who is set free by the devil for a single day a year, conceived by Statovci as a metaphor for the men’s brief but powerful liaison. Statovci sustains a deeply somber tone as the characters struggle to endure while looking back on a sad past of missed opportunity, “exhausted by that speck of freedom.” It’s an eloquent story of desire and displacement, a melancholy symphony in a heartbreaking minor key. Statovci is a master.

Starred review from August 1, 2021

Set primarily in the city of Pristina, Kosovo, this novel portrays the passionate love affair between Milos, a Serb who is studying medicine, and Arsim, an Albanian literature student at the university who has just learned that his new wife is pregnant. With tensions between Serbs and Albanians escalating and homophobia rampant, they must keep their affair hidden. The narrative moves from 1995 to 2004, alternating between the two characters; Arsim and his family finally flee Kosovo and resettle as refugees in an unnamed city, while Milos goes to the front to tend to the wounded when the Kosovo War breaks out. Suffering from PTSD, Arsim indulges in risky and abusive behavior and is deported without his family to Pristina, while Milos's mental state deteriorates so markedly that he can no longer function. Interwoven throughout the novel is a version of the Albanian myth of the snake Bolla, the daughter of God, who is freed by the Devil once a year on Saint George's Day. VERDICT Winner of the Finlandia Prize, this novel by the Kosovo-born Finnish author Statovci (Crossing) vividly describes the devastating effects of war. A harrowing and breathtaking book about abandonment, cruelty, and desire.--Jacqueline Snider, Toronto

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Starred review from May 15, 2021
Two men fall for each other in the wrong place at the wrong time in this bleak tale of love and war. The third novel by the Kosovo-born Finnish novelist Statovci is structured around the alternating narratives of Arsim, a closeted gay man and aspiring Albanian writer, and Milos, a medical student. Arsim is in emotional retreat twice over, entering a loveless marriage to hide his homosexuality and treading carefully in Pristina, Kosovo, where he's an "Albanian in a world run by Serbs." His furtive relationship with Milos is exhilarating but short-lived: It's 1995, and the Bosnian War soon sends Milos to the front and Arsim to exile in an unnamed city. As the story follows the two into the 21st century, each has suffered badly, and an attempt at reconnection only reveals the depth of the damage. Milos' chapters are briefer and more impressionistic, suffused with horrific memories of war's carnage. ("I have held a friend's heart in the palm of my hand.") Arsim's chapters are more straightforward, but though his PTSD is less acute, he's still suffused with fear, repression, and anger. He is routinely abusive toward his wife, Ajshe, and their children and makes a series of poor decisions that further sabotage his well-being. Statovci lets little sunlight into the narrative, the better to emphasize just how powerful homophobia and self-loathing can be, and Arsim is deeply unlikable; "may the Devil eat you," Ajshe spits at him, and he deserves that world-class insult. But he comes undone in engrossing and complicated ways. Indeed, he's so well drawn that Milos' portion of the narrative, however graceful, feels disproportionately thin. From either perspective, though, the mood is profoundly sorrowful. An unflinching consideration of the long aftereffects of an affair cut short.

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