An eloquent and candid memoir
4 steloj
I recently requested a review copy of Nadija Mujagic's newest memoir, Immigrated, from NetGalley, not realising it was her second book, so was grateful when her publisher got in touch asking if I would like to read Ten Thousand Shells and Counting first. Mujagic writes eloquently and candidly about her life under siege in Sarajevo during the 1990s war, describing in detail how her family lost their home and how they managed to survive those awful years. What really came across to me throughout Ten Thousand Shells and Counting is just how young Mujagic was at the time and, therefore, how different her teenagerhood was from that of kids in other countries or even from young Sarajevans just a few months previously. I was reminded of Yusra Mardini's memoir, Butterfly, recounting her experiences in Syria's war by how these two young women approached and coped with such extreme circumstances.
The …
I recently requested a review copy of Nadija Mujagic's newest memoir, Immigrated, from NetGalley, not realising it was her second book, so was grateful when her publisher got in touch asking if I would like to read Ten Thousand Shells and Counting first. Mujagic writes eloquently and candidly about her life under siege in Sarajevo during the 1990s war, describing in detail how her family lost their home and how they managed to survive those awful years. What really came across to me throughout Ten Thousand Shells and Counting is just how young Mujagic was at the time and, therefore, how different her teenagerhood was from that of kids in other countries or even from young Sarajevans just a few months previously. I was reminded of Yusra Mardini's memoir, Butterfly, recounting her experiences in Syria's war by how these two young women approached and coped with such extreme circumstances.
The Bosnian War was particularly traumatic for Sarajevans, I think, because of how swiftly neighbours were turned against neighbours in what had previously been a peacefully mixed city. Mujagic talks about this, particularly her family's struggle to understand how so many people could have blithely believed politicians' propaganda and lies over the evidence of their own experience. She also amusingly recounts her attempts to just be a teenager, staying out late and smoking too much. It was poignant though that whereas many young women might rebel by daringly nicking a cheap eyeliner from Boots, Mujagic climbed a gate in order to purloin vegetables to feed her family.
Ten Thousand Shells and Counting is a good read. Engaging and honest in its portrayals of civilians in the midst of a baffling war, I felt it gave me an authentic insight into just what Mujagic and her extended family had to endure, both during the war years themselves and also, after peace was declared, in the times that followed when these people had to come to terms with everything that had been done and the traumatised memories that remained.