I am going to write about something that really has inspired me and I think it has helped me change my way of thinking.It is a book I read about two years ago. It is called "Koltrastslätten".The title of the book in original, is the name of a province in former Yugoslavia called Kosovo.The story takes place during the short but horrible war in Kosovo 1998-1999. It is about a man's struggle for surviving a year in a country that is laid waste by ethnic cleansing and all the crimes that come with it. This young man is called Goshy, and he was 15 years old when his father was massacred along with all the other men that lived in his village. This was done by the Serbs that had lived in the village along with the Albanian people in peace and harmony for a long time. Thanks to a miracle,Goshy and his brother Mithat, manage to survive and escape the massacre, but his mother and two sisters, and the love of his life, Rebeka, are taken away by the Serbs but nobody knows where to.Goshy decides that he is going to find them no matter what it takes.He thinks that his brother Mithat is going to help him, but he has other plans.Mithat wants to join the Kosovo Liberation army (KLA) and help his people in need.Mithat tries to convince Goshy that it is the right thing to do, but Goshy thinks that KLA is as bad as the Serbian army.Mithat leaves, and Goshy continues his search for his mother,sisters and Rebeka.But it is not that easy to find them , because Goshy has to avoid beeing seen by the Serbian army, so he spends almost two days in the woods without any food or water. One day he falls asleep leaning on a tree. Then the Serbian army gets closer and finds him. They capture him and bring him to a brothel. After two days Goshy manages to escape as a result of an invasion made by KLA, now he is back in the woods and he has no food, the ethnic cleansing is still going on , and he does not even know if his family is alive or dead.In the end he finds a refugee camp , where his mother and his two sisters are. But he cannot find Rebeka, only her mother and sisters. Later he finds out that Rebeka was captured by the Serbian army and had been brought to a brothel. After she was released she comitted suicide.
This book is one of the best books I have ever read. The main reason is because it explains what happened in the modern Europe, and I don't think that many people know that. This story is not a true story, it has been glued together by many stories told by the Albanian refugees right after the war when being interviewed by the author of the book, Torben Poulsen. This book has touched my heart in a way that i did not think was possible. I have read it three times. It really made me think how lucky I am living in Sweden, and I thank my parents for the decision to move away from Kosovo. I feel a lot of pain for my people that went through all this, but at the same time I am really glad that I was not there. When I first read the book I just could not stop thinking about it. It just had a huge impact on me . In a way it is very hard to read because the only thing you want to do is cry when you read it. It breaks your heart to know that these things have really happened to people. But that is actually one of the main reasons why I love it. The author has not romantisised what really happened during those years the war was going on. He tells stories about peoples struggle through the character Goshy, and he tells them straight out, without making anything look better than it really was. When you read the book, you notice that Torben Poulsen does not only write about what the Serbs did, he is concerned with what the Albanians did to the Serbs that lived in Kosovo. And it is true, because KLA and the Serbian army were in alot of battles. But they were not face to face with eachother. They attacked the innocent people, like Goshy and his family, the civilians.
This book is very hard to find. You cannot find it in many libraries. Maybe because it has not the most popular topic and because of that it has not become a bestseller. That is a pity, because sometimes I want to read it again. I do not think people are interested reading about something they know nothing about and I do not think that many people know alot about the wars in former Yugoslavia. But it doesn't matter, the wars are over now,but still books about the war in former Yugoslavia can be very interesting to read, and this one is. Torben Poulsen is a very talented writer and has written other very inspiring books about things in daily life around the world. When he writes about something, he engages himself. That is very noticeable in this book. When he talks about the ordinary day for Goshy in his village, you can tell that Torben knows alot about the traditions and the way people lives their life in Kosovo. It is very admiring that an Danish author is so interested in a culture that is different from his own. Because with out the author this incredible story about Goshy would not excist and no one would tell the world these things that happened during the war in Kosovo.
