Book Review: Bolla by Pajtim Statovci translated by David Hackston

Finnish-kosovan novelist Pajtim Statovci created in Bolla, translated from Finnish by David Hackston, one of the most interesting queer love story I ever read set in the former Yugoslav realm. Native speakers of the local languages may counter my words, but I can only wish more books are translated into English or German or French or any other language. Sometimes I am longing for books set in those worlds I used to know so intimately many years ago, and the former Yugoslav is one of them. 

Statovci was born in Kosovo but because of the war refugiated in Finnland with his family when he was only two. Bolla - named for a legend of a mythological beast, the result of an union between a snake and God´s daughter; in fact, there are many details about this legend that I would probably research more into detail in the next weeks as I am not sure I always grasped the details of the association with the story - is an impossible, underground gay story between a Serbian medical student called Miloš and Arsim, a young Albanian, in a loveless marriage with Ajshe. 

The two of them meet at the University of Prishtina, at a time when the ethnically-fuelled conflict between Serbian and Albanians was at its peak. The relationship and generally the interaction between the two is a poetic pretext to create a lyrical narrative about love and loss, compromise and secrecy for the sake of both personal and social survival. There is not only love, but there is hate, there is not only hate, but also a sparkle of humanity, there is not only hope, but also compromise; a wide range of feelings caught into a beautiful prose which overcomes the political limitations and the outbreak of the ethnic conflict. It makes your suffer and be outraged for the absurdity of the world we live in sometimes, the cruelty and the rootless curse some may carry with them. 

Particularly the dream-like fragments are both very visually and emotionally strong, a poem to the value of dreams, both as a blessing and a curse. Indeed, the dreams may send warnings, but what a suffering to know that you should go through that pain and suffering we are warned about.

For Bolla, Statovci, the author of another book I do have on my TBR for a little while, My Cat Yugoslavia, was awarded in 2019 Finlandia Award, the country´s most important literary award.  

Rating: 4 stars