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Crossing
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
12 posts | 10 read | 12 to read
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 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.
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melissajayne
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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Mehso-so

3.5⭐️ Thought the book was ok. Felt that the story was really good in places, but in others I found it felt a bit flat. #2021 #bookreview #bookstagram #fiction #translation #historicalfiction #comingofage #contempoary #lgbt #litsyatoz2021 #c #readingeurope2021 #albania🇦🇱

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squirrelbrain
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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Pickpick

This intriguing novel tackles subjects such as gender, identity and immigration. Bujar is a young Albanian who doesn‘t want to be Albanian so reinvents himself and his history, again and again, in different countries.

It took me a few chapters to get into this, but I ended up loving it. I even liked the intertwined historical fables, which are not normally my thing.

#readingeurope2020
#albania

charl08 Sounds really good! Adding it to the TBR. 4y
Caroline2 Wooo crazy cover!! 4y
BarbaraBB Sounds good!! 4y
72 likes1 stack add3 comments
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Yngvesjohanna
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
Pickpick

Exiting to start reading this!

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Riis_Books
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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ImperfectCJ
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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1. Tagged, translated into English from Finnish.

2. Well, I've read some Beverly Cleary, Dr. Seuss, and Winnie-the-Pooh in Spanish, but those were written in English (my native language) and translated into Spanish (a language foreign to me). I've gotten myself confused about what the question means, so I'm not sure if this counts. I've not read non-English books in the original language.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

TheSpineView Thanks for playing! 😊 5y
34 likes1 comment
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ImperfectCJ
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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1. Hiking and checking out all of the wildflowers.
2. Introvert.
3. Finished three, working on five others.
4. Hi, @Megabooks ! There's some #litsylove headed your way, but I think I forgot to mark the envelope #litsylove
@4thhouseontheleft @howjessreads #FriYAYIntro

Megabooks Yay!! 😘🥰💖 That‘s fine. I‘ll recognize your name! 5y
alisiakae 🌷💚 5y
29 likes2 comments
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ImperfectCJ
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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Pickpick

Bujar is aware and adept at recognizing motives, yet he seems unable to align his self-knowledge with his actions on a consistent basis and continually sabotages himself. Statovci parallels Bujar's reliance on personal mythology and Albania's reliance on national mythology and shows the inability of each to move past emotional adolescence despite great talent and intelligence. I wonder how the personal and national mirror each other in the US?

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ImperfectCJ
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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This part of the novel is set in 2003. I can't remember... when did people start texting? I got my first cell phone in late 2002, but I can't remember when I first sent/received texts. (Not that I'm a good technological benchmark, but mine is the history with which I'm most familiar.)

wanderinglynn I think you could technically text back in the 1990s (the old multi-tap way by using the number keypad). But I don‘t think texting gained wide-spread usage until the late 1999/early 2000. I think the first phone with a QWERTY keyboard came out in 1997. So 2003 seems right. 5y
ImperfectCJ @wanderinglynn Yes, I think I remember texting on the number pad of my phone in 2004 (and I had a pager watch, too, which was super cool), and as I'm not an early adopter, I figured it must have been around for a while before then. It's funny how quickly these things become so commonplace that it's hard to remember when they started. 5y
mollyrotondo Yeah I am just as bad at remembering these types of timelines. I have to literally put my brain in that timeframe in order to picture myself doing something. I was 13 in 2003 and I remember that being my first experience receiving texts on my first phone that I got for 8th grade graduation lol oh memory lane 5y
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ImperfectCJ @mollyrotondo A hook like that makes it easier to recall details, for sure! I think I was attending a birth as a doula and texting one of my colleagues with updates. 5y
BookishMe I have been asking myself when we 'allowed' WiFi to sneak in to become a 'household essential' 😏🤦🏾‍♀️ 5y
ImperfectCJ @BookishMe Good question! I think for me it started with deciding that having DSL at home was worth the extra cost over dial-up (2008). Requisite WiFi was just a baby step from there. :-) 5y
36 likes6 comments
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ImperfectCJ
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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"When I think about my own death, the moment it happens is always the same."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

RaimeyGallant Love this line. 5y
45 likes1 stack add1 comment
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DreesReads
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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Pickpick

My last finish of 2019! This NBA Finalist for Translated Lit comes from Finland. The main character has fled Albania‘s stifling social mores and poor economy for a variety of countries, but he can‘t find what he‘s looking for. Good, but a bit confusing at times, read it to find out why! #lgbtq #intranslation

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Moray_Reads
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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youneverarrived I love that 5y
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ReadingEnvy
Crossing | Pajtim Statovci
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Pickpick

Crossing by Pajtim Statovci is a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. It starts in Albania in the early 1990s and the two main characters travel through Kosovo, Italy, Germany, up to Finland (which is where the author relocated as a child in the same era.) I was a bit confused at times as to who was narrating, but more because the author is playing with ideas of identity and how much a place informs who you can be.

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