This chilling novel, set during the Bosnian War, drives home the horrors of armed conflict.
In this updated version of his 2012 book, Levinson creates a likable titular character in Jusuf Pasalic, a college-aged Muslim man in Bosnia. Jusuf’s life takes a turn for the worse in the spring of 1992 when a Serbian soldier yanks him from his home in Kljuc. The Serbian militia rounds up all the other Muslim men in town, as well, and transports them to a detention camp. Later, Jusuf escapes by hiding in the woods. His goal is to return home to find his mother, Ismeta, but he instead wanders for weeks, finally landing in Bihac. A woman named Azra takes pity on him and brings him home so he can clean up and rest. Jusuf remains with her and her father, Suad, and eventually, Jusuf and Azra fall in love. But Jusuf, who always hated hunting, even though he’s a crack shot, feels the need to join the Muslims fighting the war. His time in combat is mostly tedium until the day that his best friend, Sasha, who’s serving with the Serbs, brings Ismeta to the front so that she and Jusuf could see each other—but this has unintended results. Levinson manages a notable feat with this volume, as readers will feel the incredibly slow passage of time as both sides of the ethnic conflict wait for a United Nations intervention that comes far too late. He’s also to be commended for his research, as his attention to detail gives immediacy to a conflict with which many Americans may be unfamiliar. Levinson grimly highlights the cruelty of wartime, and he effectively uses Jusuf to illustrate it; the kindly youth is simply trying to find his path when war tears his life apart and nearly breaks him. As such, readers who may be seeking an upbeat resolution should look elsewhere.
A gripping fictional study of a nation caught in chaos.