Bolla

by Pajtim Statovci, David Hackston (Translator), Tyler Kent (Narrator)

From the author of National Book Award finalist Crossing comes an unlikely love story in Kosovo with unpredictable consequences that reverberates throughout a young man's life—a dazzling tale full of fury, tenderness, longing, and lust.

April 1995. Arsim is a 24-year-old, recently married student at the University of Pristina, in Kosovo, keeping his head down to gain a university degree in a time and place deeply hostile to Albanians. In a café he meets a young man named Miloš, a Serb. Before the day is out, everything has changed for both of them, and within a week two milestones erupt in Arsim’s married life: his wife announces her first pregnancy and he begins a life in secret.

After these fevered beginnings, Arsim and Miloš’s unlikely affair is derailed by the outbreak of war, which sends Arsim’s fledgling family abroad and timid Miloš spiraling down a dark path, as depicted through chaotic journal entries. Years later, deported back to Pristina after a spell in prison and now alone and hopeless, Arsim finds himself in a broken reality that makes him completely question his past. What happened to him, to them, exactly? How much can you endure, and forgive?

Entwined with their story is a re-created legend of a demonic serpent, Bolla; it’s an unearthly tale that gives Arsim and Miloš a language through which to reflect on what they once had. With luminous prose and a delicate eye, Pajtim Statovci delivers a relentless novel of desire, destruction, intimacy, and the different fronts of war.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Historical Fiction, Finnish Literature, War, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published August 26, 2019

About the author

Pajtim Statovci is a Kosovo-born Finnish author.

FM Pajtim Statovci (s. 1990) on Suomen kansainvälisesti menestyneimpiä kirjailijoita. Kriitikoiden ja lukijoiden rakastamat romaanit, Kissani Jugoslavia ja Tiranan sydän, ovat saaneet englanninkielisessä maailmassa haltioituneen vastaanoton. Hänen teostensa käännösoikeuksia on myyty yli 15 kielialueelle. Statovci palkittiin esikoisromaanistaan Kissani Jugoslavia Helsingin Sanomien kirjallisuuspalkinnolla, ja Tiranan sydän voitti Toisinkoinen-kirjallisuuspalkinnon. Statovci asuu Helsingissä ja valmistelee Helsingin yliopistossa väitöskirjaa kirjallisuuden eläinrepresentaatioista.

Tiranan sydän (englanniksi Crossing) oli ehdolla arvostetun National Book Awards -palkinnon saajaksi. Bolla sai Finlandia-palkinnon 2019.
(Otavan verkkosivuston kirjailijaprofiili)

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bolla is a haunting story set before and after the Kosovo War. The main characters, gay men, struggle in a society that is thoroughly homophobic and torn apart by the war. One of the men, Arsim, is particularly unsympathetic. As the book goes on, Arsim transforms from victim into perpetrator. At times, this is a deeply unsettling read. Yet I cannot think of another book that so viscerally captures the sense of shame, desperation, and self-loathing that are often buried beneath the surface of the gay experience.

[Barry Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

call milošević by your name.

[Meike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finlandia Prize 2019
Should Have Won the International Booker Prize 2022
Statovci's Crossing won me over because of its captivating, lyrical prose, but "Bolla" is even better - beautiful, disturbing, relevant, unusual, this is the kind of fiction international literary prizes should highlight, especially as Finnish writers of Kosovar descent are not naturally prone to cater to large literary markets (which, as this novel proves, is ridiculous and utterly unfair). Statovci tells the story of Arsim, a young Albanian who recently got married and dreams of becoming a writer, and medical student Miloš, a Serb. They meet and fall in love in Pristina, but are torn apart by the Yugoslav wars.

The novel alternates between the perspectives of the two men, and the nonlinear narrative jumps back and forth in time until the year 2004, telling their individual stories and how their love lost, the war and homophobia have overshadowed their lives. But per usual with this writer, the protagonists are not merely victims: Arsim, who flees to an undisclosed country, leads a sham marriage and punishes his family for his sadness, and that is not the only terrible decision he makes. Miloš stays and is haunted by the horrors he has experienced. His short, hallucinatory, claustrophobic chapters show a man that is falling apart, while Arsim, the aspiring writer, pens a somber, dark confession that challenges the reader by conveying terrible truths.

A bolla is a demonic serpent in Albanian mythology, and it also features in the narrative: As folklore has it, the bolla opens its eyes only once a year and then devours every human that sees it. Now Arsim writes a story in which a bolla befriends a blind girl - the story becomes a symbol of hope for the two gay men who are also supposed to hate each other due to their ethnicities.

What makes this text so fascinating is that it is utterly bleak, but the insanely beautiful language renders it somehow transcendent. There is a component of magic to this writing, because it feels so overflowing, but also full of restraint; it is so imaginative, but also realistic. I suppose the key is that Statovci does not write to judge or to educate, he lets the reader do the assessment of the characters he brings to live. What a fantastic author, I can't wait for his next effort.

You can listen to my complete interview with Pajtim (in English!) here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/special/...

You can also listen to the podcast gang discussing the German translation here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...

Plus my radio piece on the novel here:
https://www.sr.de/sr/srkultur/home/ak...

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have seen a man die, I have seen a soldier's severed hand lying in the road, it looked like a pike dug up from the earth...

Audiobook - 5+++++ stars

Story - 5+++++stars

Woooow! This book is;



The writing is spectacular!! poetic, flows like the good kind of wine.... GAAHH!!

Our main narrator, Arsim! is very unlikable, selfish and everything in between. I freaking loved that he was this way. Flawed and rotten to the core. I wanted to shake him most of the time and lead him in the right direction but that would have just made this book ordinary.

He is a Serb and I am an Albanian, and by rights we should be enemies..

Then we have Miloš - GAAHH!! His pov is told in form of a journal and lawd this guy can write. My heart broke for him, ugh!! he deserved better but then again that's life. He is not perfect in any way, his childhood and war period!!!



The story is set before and after the Kosovo War. Reading about this is so heartbreaking, humans are the most cruel things to ever walk this earth. It is still happening!!! UGH!!

After searching for a while I got to experience this amazing book, thank Jan and Lyn. I feel alive.

This book is definitely not for everyone.

The ending left me wanting more. What became of Miloš? What about Arsim? and did he just leave Miloš that way? What a douche. Miloš deserved better.

I had a good miserable time with this book.

[Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humanity at its lowest in a stunning portrayal. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Patjim Statovci and his books have been recognized for all kinds of literary awards. His previous novel, Crossing, was a finalist for the National Book Awards. I just scooped that one up based on my experiencing with Bolla.

I’m not sure how well I can describe this book or my experience reading it, but I’m going to try. It’s set between Kosovo and Bulgaria in the 1990s to early 2000s. If you remember, there was considerable strife and uncertainty in the Balkan region during this time, and eventually there was war.

Two men, Arsim and Milos, one Albanian, one a Serb, meet in passing at a cafe and strike up a relationship. One of them is already married but not happy in the marriage. In fact, he loathes himself, his marriage, his children, and everything about his life, except for his time spent with Milos. The impending war causes his family to flee to Bulgaria for safety, and many years pass where Arsim continues to think of Milos and wonder what if. He actually becomes consumed by these thoughts combined with just how much he dislikes himself and the internal conflicts he has about his identity versus the life he is “stuck” inside.

Throughout this short novel, there are also journal entries from Milos during the time after Arsim leaves Kosovo. Eventually Arsim returns to Kosovo in search of Milos. Will they be reunited? How will the story resolve? Will Arsim ever find peace?

Bolla is a short novel at just over 200 pages, but it’s one of the most rich and full stories I’ve ever read. The writing leaps off the page. I’m open to characters, even the most unlikable, because I want to hear their stories and truly listen; everyone’s backstory is worth a listen. I think Statovci’s portrayal of Arsim is one of the finest examples of showing, not telling, a character whose actions I found abhorrent at times, but then I understood in a way because his internal dialogue of self-hate was a war within himself he was constantly battling.

I really loved this book, even though it’s very dark and graphic at times. Deep characterizations that leave a mark are my favorite kind of reads. This is the first book I’ve read set in Kosovo. Bolla is heartbreaking and somehow beautiful in its depiction of genuine humanity at even its lowest.

I received a gifted copy.

Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader

[Lyn❤Loves❤Listening to Real Voices Only!!!!❤️🎧📚 Addict ON HIATUS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audio - 5 Stars
Story - 5 Stars

This story was dismal as hell, but so very intriguing. I'm so glad it was translated to English and narrated by two great performers.

The main character, Arsim, is a cheater and abuser. He's miserable about being married to a woman while being in love with a man.

If you like angsty, bleak reads, I highly recommend. I already know I'll be checking out more by this author.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overdrive Library Audiobook…and ebook (not synced together)…
read by Michael Crouch, and Tyler Kent
….5 hours and 59 minutes

This is my first time experiencing Pajtimn Statovci’s writing … and oh what an incredible experience it was!!!
WOW! Wow! WOW….experience!!!

Holy moly….
It’s deeper than deep and darker than dark at times…
… with writing that BOUNCES off the page!! Impossible to pull away!
Its intense - with in your face matter of fact depictions…..
heartbreaking but (painfully beautiful).

There are not enough adjectives to describe this powerful, harrowing, astounding, emotionally gripping novel.
Just NOT ENOUGH!!!

This endorsement in Kirkus Review… got it right!:
“Engrossing. . . Statovic let’s little sunlight into the narrative, the better to emphasize just how powerful homophobia and self-loathing can be . . . An unflinching consideration of the long aftereffects of an affair cut short”.

“Bolla” is one of my “wish-to-put-in-everybody’s hands’ novel.
The ‘experience’ of love, loss, war, displacement, (even shock), didn’t have ‘any’ of the ‘run-of-the-mill’ type moments we’ve read in prior books.

HOW????
….the author made this book come SO ALIVE … is beyond me!

The audiobook readers, ( both Michael and Tyler), were outstanding—
piercingly-perfect!!!
but I also wished to read the written words.
So, half way through listening to this ‘addictive’ story—
I checked the ebook out of the library too. (thrilled both formats were available)….
and read the entire e-book in one sitting.
Then, I went back to the audiobook and finished up what I hadn’t.

I enjoyed the audiobook for the dynamic expressions of the voices ….
….ebook to relish the gorgeous prose more closely.

First … about the author …
[ for those unfamiliar as I was]:
Pajtim Statovci was born in Kosovo to Albanian parents in 1960. His family fled the Yugoslav wars and moved to Finland when he was two years old. He has an MA and comparative literature and is a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki. His first book, ‘My Cat Yugoslavia’, won the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for best debut novel; his second novel, ‘Crossing’, was a finalist for the National Book Award; and ‘Bolla’ was awarded Finland‘s highest literary honor, the Finlandia Prize. In 2018, he received the Helsinki Writer of the Year Award.

I’m willing to take full responsibility for being a reader who might add HYPE to this novel.
I recommend it…
( note though - there are explicit sexual descriptions, so if that’s a dealbreaker as not to read it — you’ve been warned) —
It only takes about three or four hours to read.
The experience is deep and the uncomfortable parts is not without a poignant purpose.

Out-of-context-no spoiler-excerpts:
Beginning with the mythic introduction….(other folklore mythologies are weaved throughout the main plot-lines):
“Having made the world, God began to create his creation. He went to meet the Devil, who asked him, ‘What’s wrong?”
“There’s a snake in my Paradise, said God.
“Well, we’ll, the Devil replied, barely concealing his
unctuous smile. He smacked his lips and waited for God to lower his head and ask a favor, for which he did next”.
“Give me a child of yours and I will do as you wish, I will remove my snake from your paradise, the Devil said, and in front of him, God was now kneeling”.
“A child of mine, God repeated.
“Yes, a child of God, said the Devil, then God started thinking”.
“Very well, God said eventually, forlorn. For that, I will give you my child”.

“It is early April, and I cannot take my eyes off him. He looks skittish and lost, as though he were living out an unpleasant dream, as though he keeps a different rhythm, different loss from those around him, and in his posture and gestures—the way he opens his books so gingerly, as though he is afraid of creasing their covers, the way he holds the pen he has taken from his pocket like a shard of broken crystal, how from time to time he presses his fingers against his temple and closes his eyes as if to give the impression of concentration, though I strongly suspect he is merely trying to refrain from looking around—there is something bare and untamed, something that speaks volumes yet remains unspoken”.

“The war ended long ago, but the end of it doesn’t really mean anything. Ajshe says that the real war starts with the cessation of hostilities and the signing of a peace treaty, because this is when you can see the earliest consequences of war, the havoc into which war has driven a country”.

“The atmosphere is so tense that everything hurdles past me; it all happens as if by itself. I am strangely indifferent to the proceedings and almost can’t fully understand what the judge is saying, the heated summation by the prosecutor or my own lawyer’s defense plea, and it feels as though I am following a concert or the life of a complete stranger from inside my car; again I become inconspicuous, a framed photograph on the wall of a room filled with legal jargon”.

“Writing isn’t particularly liberating, but it helps me kill time and tolerate the loneliness”

“Isn’t it strange—again and again, as if to humiliate themselves—people fool themselves into thinking they can get time back somehow?
How time only becomes important once it has passed?”

I’m pretty confident that most readers will devour “Bolla”…
a book of profound substance …and for lack of a better ‘enjoyable’.

[metempsicoso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non nego il talento di Statovci: basta una facciata per capire che è un autore con un'idea nitida di cosa vuole scrivere e come, della sua "parabola letteraria". Non nego neppure - sarei sciocco a farlo - la bellezza dello stile: evocativo e brutale, con alcune frasi improvvise che condensano bolle intere di pensieri dispersi lasciandoti quasi tramortito per la loro lucidità.
Però non riesco a farmi piacere i contenuti. Capisco che parlare dei Balcani, con la loro storia bellica recentissima, richieda che l'ambientazione sia rovinosa e ostile. Capisco, quindi, questa sensazione disperata evocata con insistenza che ti fa sentire asfissiato in una trincea dal gas e dai corpi putrefatti e da sangue, escrementi, paura. Nonostante quindi sul piano razionale questa decisione - propria in realtà di molti altri autori delle medesime zone - mi sia chiara e giustificata, persino condivisibile, sul piano emotivo non riesco a provare alcuna simpatia. Cosa vuoi, da me, Statovci? Che veda una qualche forma di bellezza dietro tutto 'sto schifo?
In realtà no. Non penso che l'autore ambisca a chissà quale messaggio consolatorio nascosto in filigrana tra le righe. Tutto fa schifo: continuerà a fare schifo e lo schifo devi provarlo, viverlo e farci i conti.
Questa scelta mi sembra trovi specchio e conferma nei protagonisti a cui Statovci dà voce: neppure odiosi, solo disgustosi. Esseri umani abietti, imperniati soltanto su se stessi, egoisti ed egocentrici, ingiustificabili e incomprensibili. Ed è la posizione ambigua che lo scrittore prende nei loro confronti, che, riducendo tutto all'essenza, credo mi renda così indigeribili i suoi romanzi: a tratti pare quasi fare un'azione alla Lolita, cercando di farti parteggiare per il bastardo di turno (che è una cosa che con me, come lettore, purtroppo non funziona mai. Chiamiamolo, il mio, rigore morale granitico), dall'altra una crocifissione in pubblica piazza. Questa tensione equilibrista può piacere o meno. Io, sarà appunto per la fiscalità dei miei giudizi umani, la gradisco poco.
C'è poi una certa superficialità nel trattare la tematica queer alquanto rincorrente. Non che sia necessario riportare solo esempi di comportamento esemplare e ineccepibile, ma in alcuni casi ho letto queste pagine quasi con rancore per la triste immagine che emerge della comunità. Non voglio solo la versione idilliaca, ma esigo che quella turpe sia motivata, fondata e ragionata. Non puoi buttare lì due quadretti scabrosi - e rumorosi - senza darmi qualche indicazione orientativa.
Trigger warning: qua e là si parla di violenza domestica e pedofilia. In entrambi i casi, a causa della voluta ambiguità dell'autore, le questioni sono affrontante nascondendo la polvere sotto il tappeto.

[Note successive: Leggendo "La società senza dolore" di Byung-Chul Han mi sono ritrovato a riflettere su questo libro e sull'economicizzazione della cultura, e la conseguente anestetizzazione dell'arte. Mi sono chiesto se il problema con questo libro non fossi io: forse mi attendo da ciò che leggo una compiacenza sterile? Forse, sommerso nella società palliativa, non sono in grado di accettare disturbo, sconcerto e inquietudine dall'arte? E quindi: sto contribuendo allo sputtanamento generale della letteratura?
È Statovci un genio controcorrente o un malandrino astuto?
In vero, però, questo volume non mi ha disturbato, quanto deluso. È in questa linea di confine la chiave interpretativa?]

[li.reading · Rating 2 out of 5]

“It’s easy to despise this life and everything about it because none of it is mine.”

Giovanni’s Room if everyone was infinitely worse and there wasn’t the slightest hint of a silver lining.

2.5 stars

(Mostly because it’s a very good translation)

TWs:

Graphic: Rape, Pedophilia, Abuse (Physical, Sexual, Emotional, Domestic, Child, Institutional), Incest, War, Murder, Genocide, Starvation, Body Image, Fatphobia, Death (Numerous, Including: Child, Parent), Homophobia (+ Slurs), Xenophobia, Anti-Romani Slur, Psychosis, Forced Institutionalisation, Confinement, Gore, Medical Content, Blood, Violence, Grooming, Infidelity, Toxic Relationships, Excrement, Fire

Mention: Vomit, Animal Death

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction

I can’t say I know that man, merely that I knew the man he might once have been, and even him I knew only superficially, for one brief summer. And I don’t know the man who once knew a thing or two about that man, because he too no longer exists. Neither does what happened between those two men, what they once had.

Bolla is like Pajtim Statovci's other 2 novels in English (Crossing and My Cat Yugoslavia) translated by David Hackston. The 2019 original won the Finlandia Prize.

This is a searing novel of a brief love affair between two men, torn apart by the Albanian-Serbian conflicts in Kosovo, and of the devastating after-effects of conflict and self-loathing.

The main narrative thread is told in the first by Arsim, an Albanian who wants to be a writer, and opens in April 1995 in Pristina on the day he first meets Miloš, a Serb:

The next hour feels more comfortable than any I have ever experienced. We order coffee, lower our voices, and when I see that his books are in English we switch languages. Though improbable, random even, it feels natural, because by speaking English we can be different people, we are no longer ourselves, we are free of this place, pages torn from a novel. I discover that he is twenty-five, a year older than me, that he studies medicine at the University of Pristina, and that he will probably specialize in surgery, that he is from a small town called Kurgumlija on the other side of the border, thirty kilometers northeast of my hometown, Podujevo, which in turn is thirty kilometers northeast of Pristina, that in addition to his native language and English he speaks fluent German and even a smattering of Albanian.

I tell him perfectly normal things about myself too, the kind of things you would tell a new acquaintance: I tell him my age and where I come from, tell him that my father taught English and got me interested in languages and that one day I hope to work as a teacher of literature or a proofreader for a newspaper, and as I speak I can feel the glue of his eyes against my cheek, the way he scrutinizes my every movement, his back hunched, his head to one side, listening intently as though he were trying to memorize everything I said. I tell him I study at the university too, literature, history, and English, or that I used to study there, I don't know, and telling him this feels awkward and shameful as the university in which I enrolled years ago is no longer the same as the one where he studies, the place where we began our studies at around the same time.

After finishing our coffee, we look at each other for a while, and it feels right and real, unlike everything that Pristina has become, its streets filled with Serbian troops carrying assault rifles, tanks, and lines of military vehicles that look as though they have descended from space.

Arsim is, or rather wants to be, a writer, but his studies were interrupted after Albanians were excluded from the university and he studies instead in a foundation set-up using money set by Kosovan Albanian exiles abroad. He is married to Ajshe, more for convenience and convention than love (we wed each other for a simple reason: because it's better for people to live with someone to live alone), or at least that is Arsim's perspective as Ajshe is a loving, if long-suffering and compliant, wife. And on the first day Arsim and Miloš begin their affair, Ajshe announces she is pregnant, the baby due in a few months. Arsim's reaction is to slap her for her stupidity.

Arsim shares with Miloš some of his writing, and in particular his take on the legend of the Bolla a mythical snake-like beast that lies dormant, awakening once each year on St George's Day and which gives the novel its title:

It lives in the judgments that the enraged hand down to one another, the words used to describe the stubborn and the agitated, the resentful and bitter, and it lurks on the paths we tread alone, where the rivers meet and the current is at its most treacherous, in abandoned houses, uninhabited forests and dales, on lonely mountains whose tall, icy summits pierce the clouds like balloons. For one day a year it is allowed out of its cave, always in the springtime, at sunrise, when the trees stand straight and the fields have begun to grow new hide. On that day it has a set of borrowed wings, and it is called a kulshedra, but on all other days it has a different name. It is said that while it is free it destroys everything it sees, that it strikes the woods ablaze, emptying the towns, razing everything the people have created in the preceding year. After this, it begins looking for somewhere suitable to nap; it visits the sea, the land, and the heavens, and after finding an agreeable place it sometimes forgets where it has come from, where it resided only a day earlier, how many people it has just killed, the guilty and the guilt-less, and even sings in a voice hoarse with allure.

And the end papers of the novel contain a sketch of the Bolla which the author drew when he was six or seven years old.

Arsim and Miloš's relationship carries on in secret in parallel with Arsim and Ajshe's transformation, reluctantly on his side, from a couple to parents. But as the oppression of the Albanian population escalates Arsim and his family feel forced to flee the country, and he separates from Miloš.

Miloš, devastated that Arsim chose his family over him, joins the Serbian forces where he takes part in the Kosovan war, witnessing (and passively participating) in many atrocities. We learn of his story in fractured, feverish jottings from a journal he is encouraged to keep at the institution where he is now confined for the sake of his mental health, and which is addresses to Arsim. The first entry begins:

22 JANUARY 2000
I have seen a man die, I have seen a soldier's severed hand lying in the road, it looked like a pike dug up from the earth, I have seen brothers separated at birth, houses burned to the ground and collapsed buildings, broken windows smashed crockery stolen goods, so much stuff, you'd never believe how much wreckage is left behind when life is thrashed from around it, objects die, too, when their owners are taken from them. I've seen terrible things, terrible things after terrible things and terrible things before terrible things, bodies washed up on the shores like driftwood, horrific, sick deeds, unforgivable sins, rows of gunmen and their victims, a village of children and their parents on their knees on the ground, and I knew that soon not one of them would be alive, I see it like a poster in my mind, the expression that each of them bore, the sense of impending end made their faces look empty and stiff like the heads of porcelain dolls, they wet themselves and prayed for us not to shoot them, and though they supported one another and gripped one another, they touched one another as though they were strangers, men and their wives, mothers and their children, as they pressed against one another they pushed one another farther away, though you'd think the opposite would happen. It surprised me that living at a moment like that was the exact opposite of love, such a lucid awareness of death.

I have held a friend's heart in the palm of my hand, I have thrust my hand into a chest ripped apart by bullets, grabbed a torn aorta, slippery as an eel, felt the vertebrae of the spine like teeth against my knuckles, rested my fingers on the lungs like wet pillows.

And Arsim's narration takes us to 2003-4, where he is now living in a (unnamed) city overseas with Ajshe and their three children, where he remains an unfaithful, even abusive husband and father. When a hook-up with a younger man goes wrong, Arsim ends up in prison then deported back to Pristina, separated from his family, and desperate to find Miloš. But this isn't a novel to read if you are hoping for happy endings.

Speaking of his previous novel Crossing, the author said "I didn’t want my characters to have a negative or complex relationship with their sexuality. They are not tormented about it at all." Here that isn't the case, albeit the torment is also around Arsim's relationship with his family and Miloš's guilt for the war crimes committed by his compatriots and comrades (and even himself). Here the author has said (https://www.pw.org/content/ten_questi...)

I really wanted to challenge myself with this novel by writing a story with a narrator that is not a typical hero. Bolla’s protagonist is a human wreck, a man that is so lost and broken and wounded that he ends up hurting the people closest to him. In fact, creating this character has been one of the hardest things in my writing career. After failing to find a believable narrator’s voice for him multiple times, I had to disregard some “unwritten rules” of fiction writing, such as the necessity of having the reader in your corner all the time. Doing that also freed me, because now I could write without fear of judgment, and I started getting somewhere. A catharsis isn’t necessarily always peaceful.

Impressive and I would be very disappointed if this isn't featured in the International Booker Prize, indeed this feels a potential winner. 4.5 stars rounded to 5 now (pending my periodic ratings moderation).

[Henk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bleak, brutal and strangely beautiful. How I started this on Valentine and thought this would somehow be romantic. I got incandescently mad near the end of the book. But would we be better people in the same circumstances? Never went so fast from 4 to 2 to 5 stars in my mind in rapid succession near the end.
💔If everybody got what they wanted, would there even be a word to describe desire?💔

I was a little bit naive starting in this novel, thinking it would be somewhat akin to Call Me By Your Name or Lie With Me. Pajtim Statovci however brings the reader to a terrible war and the repercussions this has on many, many lives. Maybe poetic and bleak On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous comes closest if I need to compare this to another novel.

We have Arsim, Albanian (the narrator from 1995) and Milos, a Serb (seemingly narrating from the 2000s) who is studying to be a heart surgeon. While Arsim is married at 20 on behalf of a dying father, they pick-up a passionate affair, while Pristina and the wider country around them is falling apart.

Stories, featuring both winged snakes and myths and the horrors of war, feature heavily, with Arsim being an aspiring writer. Soon events lead him to leave the country, while Milos remains and experiences horrible things. Depression and feeling superfluous in a new country feature heavily in the middle of the book, and here the author of Bolla is brave in how he depicts his main character, without introspection, following impulse and desire without regard to anyone.
We have bodyshaming and fatphobia for someone under 20, while having three kids in the age range of 14 to 17. Symbolically we have prisons being better than refugee centres. I thought this was maybe the most uncomfortable part of the novel but then we dive deeper into the history of Milos and I remember listening to these scenes while walking past the Thames after work and feeling physically sick.

The grimness level is over A Little Life level, with people suicidal at 13 and rape in a family. Choosing to be a heart surgeon due to an earlier lover is a small glimmer of how it is also possible to be positively influenced by surroundings. Concurrently the fable of a snake given by the devil in exchange for the blind daughter of god also reaches a gruesome conclusion.

A person so damaged, which is what we see in the last part of the novel, also made me think of Jude from Hanya Yanagihara her work.
There seems to be an inability to change and become a good person, which is maybe not just a character critique but a metaphor for humanity. Some characters are rather despicable, why are they so morally weak, I mean what did he expect upfront would happen as a consequence of any of his deeds? It reminds me how love requires sacrifice and persistence instead of being centred around one’s own desire and wants. And how we are (hopefully) taught by life not to hurt people intentionally. Daringly, belief in love being unconditional is in a sense completely undermined in this tale, leading to the strong emotional reaction I had near the end, thinking of characters in the book as demonic.

But this sentence is so heartbreaking as well and made me realise how easy I have it, how the conditions of my life shaped how I feel what love should be, unconditional, and how I can't demand people to be better if their circumstances are so sad in so many ways: I feel I have the right not to take responsibility
A singular, sobering book that is likely to be my favourite of the year!
Read this, but be prepared.

Quotes:
That’s life, we rarely got to do what we truly want

Who would do such a thing, touch a broken man?

I know everything, not even an Albanian would do that.

Violence only begets more violence

Dreams follow the lies we tell ourselves

Choose your side and remember that the enemy is not human. The enemy doesn’t have a face, a family, the enemy is nobody’s child, nobody’s parent. The enemy doesn’t have a sister or a brother, and the enemy doesn’t feel pity and so should you.

A kid born out of habit

Life has turned cruel

Maybe happiness is knowing that happiness doesn’t exist.

I expected more of you than you expected of me, maybe that was our problem all along.

One raised with fear never learns to live without it.

Sometimes it is as if the evil you see becomes the evil you do.

A lack of options is in fact a multiple of possibilities

A joyless life with someone else is always better than a joyless life spent alone.

We don’t fit in the same room

Money makes me feel good, safe

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

************ 6 Stars ****************

THIS BOOK.
How is it possible?!
Beautiful in its ugliness! 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

I have so much to say, but I don't know how or where to start.
So, I'm just gonna give this 6 stars and shut my mouth.



Friendly warning:
If you are a reader who needs perfect and likeable characters to be able to appreciate or enjoy a story, steer clear from this. This story transcends that.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much in the same vein as his two previous and also excellent novels, this is a harrowing story of the devastation caused by the war in the author's native Kosovo between the Serbs and Albanians. The two protagonists are both deeply flawed and not necessarily all that likeable - but all too human and recognizable. David Hackston also brings his impeccable translation skills to bear once again, his prose is effortlessly readable, and I raced through this in less than a day. Surely this must be a strong contender for the Booker International Prize for 2022, as well as all the other prestigious translated fiction awards.

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/_uCVmLMXc7gv

[But_i_thought_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I should apologize to you I’ve lied and keep lying
about so many things
sometimes it’s as if the evil you see becomes the evil you do…”

The year is 1995. The setting: Pristina, Kosovo. When Arsim spots Milos in a cafe, he feels an instant connection. They have coffee together and chat about their studies, their histories, their ambitions. Putting an arm on Milos’ shoulder later on, Arsim feels a new sense of aliveness:

“He is Serb and I am Albanian, and by rights we should be enemies, but now, as we touch, there is nothing between us that is strange or foreign to the other.”

But there is a catch: Arsim is married, with a child on the way. And war is about to break out around them.

Ah, you say, I think I know where this story is headed . . .

To which I counter, no, dear friend, you don’t.

As a novel, Bolla is as slippery and untamed as the fire-breathing, mythical serpent that forms its central motif. It pivots and morphs and slithers in ways that are surprising and unexpected.

Bolla is like an ice-cold shower, slapping you awake.

If you were to drink Bolla, it would taste of hardtack alcohol with a side shot of gasoline, burning your throat and stinging your eyes.

…

Bolla explores the conditions that damage a person into an intensified version of their worst self. It looks at the ways humans can be bound together, not just by love, but also the violence, by trauma.

And yet, for all its pain, Bolla is not a hopeless kind of read. It is beautiful, brittle, lacerating.

Bolla is like a technicolor explosion. Not a sermon, nor a history lessons, but an excavation, a searching for truth.

It reminded me why I read.

Rating: 10/10
Translated by: David Hackston

Also on Instagram.

[Jaana V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bolla on romaani, jota on vaikeaa laskea käsistään ja mielestään. Sellainen, jossa kuvataan paitsi albaanin ja serbin rakastumista sodan kynnyksellä, keskellä mahdotonta, myös ja ennen kaikkea raunioitumista (ihmisten, unelmien, kotien) sellaisella intensiteetillä, että sydäntä raastaa.

Vaikka teoksen henkilöt ovat aika kammottavia kaikki, on heistä rakennettu tarina niin vetovoimaisesti kirjoitettu, ettei lukemista osaa lopettaa. Kaiken epäinhimillisen, kivun ja tuskan keskeltä löytyy myös aina se halkeama, josta inhimillisyys, toivo ja elämä kasvaa. Niin tässäkin tarinassa. Upea kirja, joka jättää syvän jäljen!

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorgeously haunting novel on desire, rage, self destruction, and healing. Told in a series of disturbing journal entries and somber reflections, Bolla is not just a story of war between people and nations, but between the heart and the mind, between impulse and action, desire and reality. It is written with lyrical sorrow and wistfulness; asking the questions: how far will we go to express our discontent? When does creativity and emotion override reality? Is it possible to recover from the point of no return? This novel is beautifully crafted, and filled with stunning passages that clearly reflect hearts in distress, burst from longing.

[od1_40reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a little lost for words right now after having literally just finished this book… It is A-mazing!

It is a deeply unsettling read, expertly and beautifully written.

I may write more once I’ve had time to digest my thoughts and feelings on it.

My top book of the year so far.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This striking, often harrowing novel from Kosovan author Pajtim Statovci deftly deploys metaphor, myth and history to construct a haunting variation on a queer love story set against the background of war and conflict. Statovci’s story centres on Albanian Arsim and Serbian Miloš who meet in Kosovo in the mid-90s. From the beginning the relationship between recently-married Arnim and Miloš is troubled and turbulent but then they find themselves further separated by wartime divisions and ancient rifts. A vivid, memorable, exploration of trauma, homophobia and self-doubt, impressively constructed and consistently well written. Translated here by David Hackston.

Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Faber & Faber for an ARC

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's challenging to read about a protagonist who does absolutely despicable things but who still comes across as sympathetic. Like many young gay men living in a predominantly homophobic society, Arsim gets pressured into entering a passionless marriage with a woman to appease his family. In the city of Pristina during early 1995 he has a fling with a handsome aspiring-doctor named Milos. This gives him a taste of a life separate from his poor neglected pregnant wife Ajshe. However, sexuality isn't the only thing preventing these men from openly declaring their love. Arsim is Albanian and Milos is Serbian. With xenophobia and open aggression towards Albanians on the rise, Arsim is painfully aware the country is reaching a crisis point. This breathtaking novel depicts his troubled journey grappling for an independent life beyond his dire circumstances and actively harming people along the way.

Statovci takes an interesting approach to showing the consequences of The Kosovo War not by portraying the battle itself but characters affected by it before and after the conflict. Where the novel “At Night All Blood is Black” powerfully portrayed the process by which a soldier can be dehumanized on the battlefield, “Bolla” shows how individuals come to lose their empathy for others from the strain of living under horrifyingly tense circumstances and living with shell shock in the aftermath of war. The author does this through three narrative strands which alternate between an account of Arsim's life, a series of cryptic journal entries (whose author and meaning becomes clear as the novel progresses) and short fable-like passages about negotiations between God and the Devil. This third strand poignantly emphasizes the grey line between good and evil. Though this novel begins as a tale of forbidden romance it gradually morphs into something more complex and sinister showing how the urge for survival can totally corrupt an individual.

Read my full review of Bolla by Pajtim Statovci at LonesomeReader

[Tommi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another ridiculously good novel by the author of My Cat Yugoslavia and Crossing, the latter of which I’ve already proclaimed as one of the best translated novels of 2019. Bolla is emotionally intense, thought-provoking, and beautifully written – I couldn’t but finish it in less than 24 hours. Look out whenever this gets translated into English.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Bolla, Pajtim Statovci tells the story of love, war, and living in the moment because of an uncertain future.

Arsim finds himself in Kosovo in the years building up to the Kosovo War. An Albanian man, he is in an arranged marriage with a woman who finally becomes pregnant. But when he stumbles upon a young Serbian man at a cafe one day, he will fall in love, altering his life forever. As the War tears apart Kosovo and Arsim finds himself in love with a man while married to a woman, he must choose between family and love.

Statovci can tell a story and that is clear in Bolla but the ending of this book is starkly inhumane and unexpected. I am still deciding whether this ending is acceptable but nonetheless this book is a good read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useamman aloitusyrityksen jälkeen tämä vei totaalisesti mukanaan. Hieno, raadollinen ja eheä rakkaustarina rikkinäisistä ihmisistä, joka tuntui kuitenkin jopa liian yksiulotteiselta Statovcin aiempiin kirjoihin verrattuna. Ilman niiden vahvuuden luomia odotuksia tämä olisi ollut varmasti neljänkin tähden kirja, nyt ehkä hieman epäreilustikin yksi tähti vähemmän, vaikka ei toki vertailla saisi.

[Gabril · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Forse la felicità è sapere che non esiste. E la tristezza è la saggezza di sopportarlo”.

L’amore, la guerra.
La brama, la violenza.
Oscillare come esseri umani tra la fanciulla e la bestia.
Inseguire sogni che sono soltanto l’ennesima ipotesi dell’illusione.
Essere ovunque in esilio.

“Bolla”: spettro, creatura ignota, straniero.
È questo anche il titolo originale del libro.
Un titolo (Bolla) che indica l’ambiguità, l’impasto di bene e male di cui siamo fatti : un accordo tra dio e diavolo, come leggiamo nella premessa, tratta da una storia del folklore locale.

Racconto duro. Ti prende a mazzate, non ti lascia tregua.
Racconto complesso. Due narrazioni si alternano: quella di Arnim, albanese del Kossovo, aspirante scrittore le cui aspirazioni la guerra spazza via e quella più frammentata di Miloš, giovane serbo che studia medicina a Pristina e vuole diventare cardiochirurgo.

A Pristina i due si incontrano. Si innamorano perdutamente, cominciano una relazione clandestina. Non solo perché Arnim, obbediente alla tradizione, ha accettato di sposare Ajshe, ma anche perché la morale comune non può tollerare lo scandalo del loro amore.
Ma non è solo la società civile che li condanna a essere invisibili. È la guerra a separarli definitivamente, a decretarli nemici e a renderli anche invisibili l’uno all’altro. Questo nella prosaica realtà, ma non nello struggente attaccamento al desiderio e al sogno a cui entrambi restano fedeli (pur sapendo che “i sogni corrono dietro alle menzogne che diciamo a noi stessi”).

Vivranno condizioni molto diverse, Arnim da esule con la sua famiglia, Miloš da medico di guerra, ma avranno in comune la progressiva devastazione delle loro vite. L’odio per se stessi, la disgregazione dei desideri, la paura, il buio intorno e dentro…fino al compimento dei loro differenti destini, quando la Storia divorerà le loro storie.

Un romanzo intenso, forte, con una cifra stilistica ben definita e un percorso narrativo non banale.
Anche un personaggio sottotono e marginale come Ajshe, la moglie devota e sottomessa di Arnim, silenziosa custode della tradizione, avrà una evoluzione personale sorprendente.

E sorprendente sarà anche leggere questa storia che ci mostra i nervi scoperti del dolore, ci racconta del coraggio di resistere e della resa, della miseria e della meraviglia di essere umani.
Perché, nonostante l’orrore, alla fine è la compassione ad averla vinta.

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*
Pajtim Statovci - Kosove gimęs augęs, emigravęs į Suomiją ir pristatomas, kaip suomių rašytojas.


bolla
1. ghost, beast, fiend
2. unknown animal species, snakelike creature
3. alien, invisible

Tai romanas apie 1995-tųjų karo Balkanuose ir pamilusių vienas kitą vyrų meilės tragedijas. Turbūt nekeista, kad man skaitant šią knygą dabar daug stipriau rezonavo karo tematika. Kaip ir šiandien Ukrainoje, Kosovo teritorijoje buvo žudomi, prievartaujami, plešiami, deportuojami albanai.

Pasakojime šalia vinguriavo dviejų vyrų - serbo gydytojo Milošo ir albano (būsimo rašytojo) Arsimo meilės istorija. Ir dar šaliau, mano galva, visai tikusiai įkomponuota perdirbta albanų legendą apie demoną-drakoną (Bolla). Amžina gėrio - blogio mūsuose kova.

Kas kliuvo? Šiaip jau, labai nervino Arsimo personažas. Čia, be abejo, priekaištai autoriui - kaip išsilavinęs ar apsilavinęs būsimas rašytojas keistai nustemba ir pasipiktina, kuomet žmona pastoja. O jau kai tai nutiko antrą kartą ir vėl tas pats Arsimo pyktis visiškai mane pribloškė. "/
Kas dar? Gal tiesiog pasakojimui pritruko jėgos.

Tai romanas apie ksenofobiją ir homofobiją. Ir būtent dėl to, manau, būtų gerai jį išverst į lietuvių kalbą. Tuo labiau, kad parašytas jis tikrai neblogai.

Ši knyga man vietomis labai susišaukė su Elif Shafak "Išeinančių medžių sala" ir J. Baldwin "Giovani's Room".

Trečioji autoriaus knyga ir antroji mano perskaityta. Skaičiau jo "Crossing". Neskaityta liko "My Cat Yugoslavia". Gal kas skaitė? Kaip?

Iš visų leidimų man gražiausias viršelis-


'Having made the world, God began to regret his creation. He went to meet the Devil, who asked him, "What's wrong?"
"There's a snake in my Paradise," said God.
"Well, well, "the Devil replied, barely concealing his unctuous smile. He smacked his lips and waited for God to lower his head and ask a favor, which he did next.
"Give me a child of yours and I will do as you wish, I will remove my snake from your Paradise," the Devil said, and in front of him, God was now kneeling.
"A child of mine," God repeated.
"Yes, a child of God," said the Devil, then God started thinking.
"Very well," God said eventually, forlorn. "For that, I will give you my child."

[Nadine in California · Rating 5 out of 5]

The protagonists in this novel unravel in the face of evil, including god - pointedly a little 'g' god who is missing in action during and after this ethnoreligious war. What appearances he makes are furtive and guilty, whether it's in the Bolla myth, where he gives his daughter away (after first raping her) to the devil to rid his creation of a snake, or in the lives of refugees Arsim and his wife Ajshe:

Regret caught in the throat, rose up to the mouth like potent bile, its taste wouldn't go away, and guilt took hold of the eyes, making everything its slave, and god wouldn't leave our house either but wandered from room to room in the air that flowed through the apartment, he hid behind our belongings, concealed in cupboards, lurked between the sheets and inside a newly acquired dishwasher, left his role as an answerer of prayers and turned into questions we asked ourselves everyday in front of the mirror but never dared ask each other."

This book might have been too bleak for me were it not for Ashje, a woman of incredible poise and strength. Raised to be a subservient wife and mother, she finds the resources inside herself to meet every trial with clear eyes and a pragmatic mind. She's one of the most inspiring characters I've read in a while.

[Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

Around the World Reading Challenge: KOSOVO
===
1.5 rounded down

WOW, did I fucking hate this book. I love a good anti-hero as much as the next person, but the author really went out of their way to give Arsim just about every irredeemable quality known to man, without a single positive trait in the bunch. He's a fucking disgusting, cowardly, selfish person, and reading this was physically painful. I came for the queer story and left absolutely fucking livid. There was some good writing, and fascinating historical context, but I found absolutely nothing at all of value in Arsim which made it impossible for me to connect with the story.

[Fab · Rating 4 out of 5]

La prima cosa che, è indubbio, salta all’occhio è la scrittura. Ti fa già intuire che la vicenda non andrà granché bene, percepisci lo struggimento, le forti emozioni, che trasudano da quelle parole, dalle frasi che ti lasciano con un vago senso di stordimento.
Il fulcro risiede principalmente nel titolo originale, che, purtroppo, in italiano non ha trovato un degno corrispettivo. “Bolla”, in finlandese, indica sì un essere invisibile (come segnala la scelta traduttiva), ma anche una bestia, un serpente (e ciò ci riconduce alla Kulshedra del folklore albanese). Perché, mi chiedo, l’invisibilità viene condensata con la bestialità, con un essere terribile identificato a fatica, nello stesso, identico termine? Forse l’invisibilità, il non ricevere riconoscimento dalla società in cui ci troviamo, potrà inevitabilmente alla trasformazione in bestie, in esseri capaci di atti a dir poco ignobili? Può questo portarci a divorare l’altro, ad abbandonare il suo corpo ormai privo d’anima, ignorando la sua dignità, ciò che prima rappresentava per noi?

Sono impressioni che mi sono state trasmesse a caldo, non credo ci sia effettivamente una risposta lineare. Ma forse è bene provare a cercarla.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bolla is a demonic serpent girl from Albanian mythology and it also writhes it's way through this story. A story told by two people, Milos very relatable and Arsim very unlikable. This duality shows up in the story being told. A story which has been cheering on one moment and banging my head in another. It also shows up when nature is pitted against nurture and here we end up with tragic results. Because what nurture says in this case, hate yourself for liking a man if you are a man than makes one take decisions which will lead to tragic consequences. It will lead you to take a wife who you do not want, to have children you do not want, to want things that make you ashamed.

Well told. I especially enjoyed Milos through his writing. Found it especially delicious that the one who wanted to be a writer did not write whilst the one who had no such aspirations wrote so beautifully.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my ten best this year, Bolla would be my selection to win this year's Kirkus Prize. Statovci has a way of making his characters seem very human, justifiable, and almost forgivable in their process of committing the basest of acts, and he takes risks going where few writers of his skill dare to go. I can use terms like raw, or gritty, but Statovci needs a new descriptive adjective. There is an honesty to his depictions that few have. Some readers will not approve of some of the content and I suggest one check more descriptive reviews before jumping in. OTOH, if you are open to anything, jump in blind and head first!