A Short Border Handbook
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Book Overview
A Short Border Handbook is a cogent and comical journey into the depths of dictatorship, migration, and borders from an Albanian who grew up in Enver Hoxha's Stalinist madhouse, longing for the West, only to find yet more visible and invisible borders on his arrival. After spending his childhood in Stalinist Albania during the Cold War, and fantasizing about life across the border, the unnamed protagonist (based closely on the author) flees to Greece, the only country in the Balkans that belonged to the "Western bloc"only to get banged up in a detention center. As he and his fellow immigrants try to make sense of the new world, they find jobs and plan their future lives in Greece, imagining success that is always beyond their grasp. The sheer absurdity of both their plans and their new lives is overwhelming. In a narrative both ironic and emotional, Kapllani interweaves the story of his experience with meditations upon "border syndrome"a mental state, as much as a geographical experienceto create a brilliantly observed, amusing, and perceptive debut. And an ever timely one at that.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0997316985
ISBN13:9780997316988
Release Date:October 2017
Publisher:New Europe Books
Length:144 Pages
Weight:0.38 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"
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