I really did not expect to find a lot of books about Croatia, considering that it is a relatively young country, born in the 1990s during the anti-communist era with other Balkan and Baltic nations. Thirty years isn’t a long time for a small country to produce a lot of books (in English, no less), but I ended up having quite a few to choose from.
Many of the books I found were memoirs of expats who had come to live here, drawn by the beautiful islands and coastline, the sea, or a romantic interest. One or two of them looked promising, but I had just finished reading a memoir about an expat in New Zealand so I was looking for something different. I was hoping to read a novel dealing with the period of transition when Yugoslavia broke up into Croatia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Slovenia. I found two that fit that qualification. One I had already read a number of years ago but did take place in Croatia, and the other, unread, took place in Serbia. I decided to re-read Girl at War by Sara Nović and see if it held up to my first impression of it.
The author is of Croatian descent, but lives and grew up in the U.S., and the protagonist of the novel is a young woman who was born in Croatia, then came to the U.S. as a child during the Croatian War of Independence. The story presents a ten year old’s point of view of air raids, guerrilla warfare, and genocide alternating with a 20 year old’s struggles with identity, PTSD, and relationships.
I’m glad I re-read it — it was still an engaging read the second time around and reminded me of some bits about the history that I had forgotten. It was fun to recognize her descriptions of places that I have now been, as well as of foods that I have seen on the shelf at the grocery stores here.
Girl at War is an often sad, yet hopeful book that pairs well with a thin, watery soup (because wartime) and a crusty loaf of bread.
