My Name Is Bosnia »

"Sabaheta is a literature student at the University of Sarajevo when war breaks out in Bosnia-Herzegovina. After her brother is taken by armed thugs and her mother descends into madness, she goes into the forest with her father to join the guerrillas, where she dresses like a boy and fights side-by-side with the men. When her father is killed in combat, Sabaheta gives him a makeshift funeral and vows one day to leave her homeland and seek a country where she can pursue her studies and live in peace. Although she is not an observant Muslim, she decides once again to wear the traditional headscarf and changes her name to Bosnia, making her way along to Sarajevo to reunite with her friends." Finally escaping their genocidal homeland, they rise from its ashes of violence and hatred, remaking themselves in the images kept in their hearts of a fabled new life in a foreign land.

Publishers Weekly

A Bosnian refugee who takes on the name of her war-ravaged country goes on a journey of healing and self-discovery in this stilted but moving novel by Gagnon (Song for a Far Quebec). After fighting in the war as a guerrilla and experiencing personal losses amid constant violence and deprivation, Bosnia carries the horrors of her past with her to France and Canada, where she and her husband, Adem, become the houseguests of two generous exile couples, and plan their future. War, Islam and devastation of all kinds, particularly crimes against women in wartime and peacetime, play repeatedly in Bosnia's remembrances of war. A former university student in Sarajevo, she uses literature as a guide and a talisman, and the novel is stuffed with quotations (mainly from Francophone authors). Her exclamations are disappointing ("Love, my love, is stronger than evil and stronger than war"), but Bosnia's relationships, including those with two abused wives and with a Holocaust survivor, bring her story to life. Through them, Gagnon movingly captures the transformative effect of war on human consciousness, the way that memories of trauma and tragedy become lifelong companions. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.