Pajtim Statovci. (2017). My Cat Yugoslavia: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Pajtim Statovci. 2017. My Cat Yugoslavia: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Pajtim Statovci, My Cat Yugoslavia: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2017.

Pajtim Statovci. My Cat Yugoslavia: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2017.

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1. • value: family
2. • value: relationships
3. • value: Finland
4. • value: Friendship
5. • value: literary fiction
6. • value: road trip
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8. • value: Cats
9. • value: family life
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21. • value: Coming of age
22. • value: Death
23. • value: love story
24. • value: Short Stories
25. • value: pregnancy
26. • value: Drama
27. • value: Gay
28. • value: Modern
29. • value: LGBTQ
30. • value: gay books
31. • value: Gay culture
32. • value: grief
33. • value: gay fiction
34. • value: kosovo
35. • value: Music
36. • value: LGBT
37. • value: 1980s
38. • value: literature
39. • value: fiction books
40. • value: lgbt fiction
41. • value: realistic fiction
42. • value: muslim girl
43. • value: Finnish
44. • value: cat books
45. • value: lgbt books
46. • value: lgbt novels
47. • value: realistic fiction books
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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Statovci, Pajtim
   • bioText: PAJTIM STATOVCI was born in 1990 and moved from Kosovo to Finland with his family when he was two years old. He currently lives in Helsinki, where he is studying comparative literature at the University of Helsinki and screenwriting for film and television at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. My Cat Yugoslavia is his first novel.
   • name: Pajtim Statovci
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   • fileAs: Hackston, David
   • name: David Hackston

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Vintage

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2017-04-18T00:00:00-04:00

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title

My Cat Yugoslavia

fullDescription

A love story set in two countries in two radically different moments in time, bringing together a young man, his mother, a boa constrictor, and one capricious cat.
 
In 1980s Yugoslavia, a young Muslim girl is married off to a man she hardly knows, but what was meant to be a happy match goes quickly wrong. Soon thereafter her country is torn apart by war and she and her family flee. Years later, her son, Bekim, grows up a social outcast in present-day Finland, not just an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners, but a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only friend is a boa constrictor whom, improbably—he is terrified of snakes—he lets roam his apartment. Then, during a visit to a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat who moves in with him and his snake. It is this witty, charming, manipulative creature who starts Bekim on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons and make sense of the magical, cruel, incredible history of his family. And it is this that, in turn, enables him finally, to open himself to true love—which he will find in the most unexpected place

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
   • content: "This beautiful novel is about a great many things: a snake and a sexy, sadistic, talking cat; online cruising and Balkan weddings; the surreal mess of identity; the things that change when we change our country and the things that never change; the heartbreaking antagonism between fathers and sons; the bewilderment of love. Pajtim Statovci is a writer of brilliant originality and power, and his debut novel conveys as few books can what life feels like now."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Sofi Oksanen, author of When the Doves Disappeared
   • content: "After this superb debut it's safe to say: this is a literary voice to follow."
3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 13, 2017
     In current day Helsinki, Bekim, an isolated, gay, 20-something ethnic Albanian born in Kosovo, acquires a boa constrictor and intentionally keeps it out of its terrarium, preferring to let the snake wrap itself around his body instead. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, readers follow Bekim’s history: the story of his mother and father before they were married and he was born, the Serbian destruction of Islamic Albania, and the family’s eventual move to Finland. As each story line progresses, the gap between the two timelines closes, illustrating how the past and the present have shaped Bekim. The chapters featuring Bekim’s mother, beginning in 1980 when she was 15 years old, powerfully reveal her strained marriage to a traditional, domineering man and her endless domestic responsibilities because “a Kosovan home should always look tidy and shouldn’t look lived in.” She works tirelessly to placate her husband and protect her children, a task made infinitely more difficult once the family is displaced to cold, foreign Finland. But the thread following adult Bekim is far more difficult to track, particularly once he meets a cat in a bar: “he raised his front paw to the top button of his shirt, unbuttoned it, and began walking toward me.” The reality here becomes hard to parse, and it’s unclear if the cat is whimsical or a reflection of Bekim’s disturbed mental state. While the story of the family is compelling, the juxtaposition with the talking cat becomes a jarring counterpoint, interfering with the otherwise important exploration of the aftershocks of war.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from February 15, 2017
     Winner of Finland's highest literary honor for best debut novel, an elegant, allegorical portrait of lives lived at the margin, minorities within minorities in a new land.Bekim is Muslim and gay, the son of a woman who left fragmenting Yugoslavia with her domineering, moody husband for a new life in Finland. Now, in Helsinki, where Bekim is not entirely at home though a productive citizen, he has come into the orbit of a talking cat who sucks down alcohol and has any number of dislikes and--well, pet peeves. "Gays. I don't much like gays," says the cat, before amending the remark to, "Obviously, I like all kinds of toms, but I hate bitches!" That explains the cat's presence in a gay bar, perhaps, but it does nothing to relieve Bekim's angst, especially when the cat hisses that no one will ever love him. His mother, Emine, meanwhile, has grown from an utterly ordinary person, "only pretty and good at housework, or so I'd been told," as she says, to a self-aware woman who finally frees herself from a bad marriage and a life where "our entire existence hung on our children who had decided to have nothing to do with us." Statovci's characters might prefer to live quietly on the sidelines, but events in Kosovo overturn their lives, even from afar; witnessing one in a long series of atrocities on the news, Emine concludes, "God did nothing with that child because there was no God." Strangers in an uncomprehending new home, Statovci's actors make do, alert for possibilities of happiness, however unattainable. Statovci doesn't quite make full use of his fantastic cat; though he invests his creation with plenty of personality, Statovci lacks Mikhail Bulgakov's flair for satirical meaning-making through the use of animal characters. As it is, though, the creature turns out to be a complex character, tormented as well as a tormentor. And that's not to speak of Bekim's pet snake, who has dangerous ideas of his own. Allegorical but matter-of-fact: a fine debut, layered with meaning and shades of sorrow.

     COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from February 1, 2017
     

     Told in alternating chapters, this powerful story of Albanian refugees from Kosovo now living in Finland (like the author himself) starts with the encounter of two gay men who met in a chatroom. The lonely younger man, Bekim, is searching for someone with whom to share his life. In alternate chapters, we read about the courtship and marriage of Bekim's parents, Emine and Bejram, and of Emine's youthful dreams of a handsome, caring husband and children of her own. After a traditional wedding and the birth of their children, the family flees to Finland to escape the numerous military conflicts in Kosovo. Unfortunately, Emine and Bejram's life continues to deteriorate, and Bejram becomes even more melancholy and abusive, alienating himself from everyone. Vacationing in his homeland, he realizes he no longer fits in there any more than he does in Finland and feels thoroughly unwanted; he is living in a kind of purgatory. We see the dramatic effects of this dysfunctional life on Bekim, who as a child was terrorized by nightmares of snakes and now adopts a boa constrictor as a pet. In addition, Bekim follows the advice of a highly unusual talking cat. VERDICT Statovci is a tremendous talent. This debut novel--a deserved winner of the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for Best First Novel in 2014--has an intensity and power that demands a second reading. [See Prepub Alert, 10/10/16.]--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

     Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 1, 2017
     Cats and snakes feature prominently in Statovci's novel, adding levity and surrealist texture to an otherwise grim story about a Kosovar family's new life in Finland. Young Emine marries handsome but brutish Bajram, who is not traditional enough to kill a cat in front of her, as wedding-night custom dictates. Years later, her youngest son, Bekim, falls into an abusive relationship with a talking cat who, despite his good looks, turns out to be a sadistic jerk. Before that, Bekim's most intimate relationship was with the gigantic boa constrictor he allows to roam free in his apartment. Though estranged, mother and son seek similar emancipation from patriarchy, prejudice, and their Yugoslavian past, but Finland, with its rules and various forms of coldness, does not easily yield the freedom they desire. Alternating between two first-person narrators and swerving between realism and allegory, Statovci sacrifices some linear continuity to emphasize broader points about his characters' hybrid identities and disjunctive experiences. Will symbolism, whimsy, and emotionally manipulative animals resonate with international audiences? Finland bestowed the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for best first novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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A love story set in two countries in two radically different moments in time, bringing together a young man, his mother, a boa constrictor, and one capricious cat.
 
In 1980s Yugoslavia, a young Muslim girl is married off to a man she hardly knows, but what was meant to be a happy match goes quickly wrong. Soon thereafter her country is torn apart by war and she and her family flee. Years later, her son, Bekim, grows up a social outcast in present-day Finland, not just an immigrant in a country suspicious of foreigners, but a gay man in an unaccepting society. Aside from casual hookups, his only friend is a boa constrictor whom, improbably—he is terrified of snakes—he lets roam his apartment. Then, during a visit to a gay bar, Bekim meets a talking cat who moves in with him and his snake. It is this witty, charming, manipulative creature who starts Bekim on a journey back to Kosovo to confront his demons and make sense of the magical, cruel,...

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