For readers of The Tigerâs Wife and All the Light We Cannot See comes a powerful debut novel about a girlâs coming of ageâand how her sense of family, friendship, love, and belonging is profoundly shaped by war.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE, BOOKLIST, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE âĒ ALEX AWARD WINNER âĒ LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST âĒ LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMENâS PRIZE FOR FICTION
Zagreb, 1991. Ana JuriÄ is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatiaâs capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Anaâs idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Anaâs sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.
New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though sheâs tried to move on from her past, she canât escape her memories of warâsecrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her countryâs difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before.
Moving back and forth through time, Girl at War is an honest, generous, brilliantly written novel that illuminates how history shapes the individual. Sara NoviÄ fearlessly shows the impact of war on one young girlâand its legacy on all of us. Itâs a debut by a writer who has stared into recent history to find a story that continues to resonate today.
Praise for Girl at War
âOutstanding . . . Girl at War performs the miracle of making the stories of broken lives in a distant country feel as large and universal as myth.ââThe New York Times Book Review (Editorâs Choice)
â[An] old-fashioned page-turner that will demand all of the readerâs attention, happily given. A debut novel that astonishes.ââVanity Fair
âShattering . . . The book begins with what deserves to become one of contemporary literatureâs more memorable opening lines. The sentences that follow are equally as lyrical as a folk lament and as taut as metal wire wrapped through an electrified fence.ââUSA Today
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