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340 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
An eventful century or so ago, my paternal ancestors left behind what was then Galicia, the easternmost province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Western Ukraine), and resettled in Bosnia, which had recently been annexed to the Hapsburg domain. My peasant forebears brought with them a few beehives, an iron plough, many songs about leaving home, and a recipe for perfect borscht, a dish previously unknown in that part of the world.
"I think you've convinced yourself that you are the logical conclusion of everything that happened in Momjan, Otoka, Ljubljana, in Buje and wherever else; that all those lives join together in you; all the regret, remorse, longing, despair and disappointment, all of that is now within you, and lives on inside you, as if none of those people had ever died, as if all of those people were trapped inside you, like in a closet, frozen in time."