Short Discription

A spotlight on a region that is not peacified: The multifaceted debut novel "Ach, mein Kosovo!" by Mechthild Henneke.

The Western Balkans are nowadays a blank spot on the map for many. After the wars in the nineties, the region disappeared from focus. Only some of the countries were accepted by the European Union. Mechthild Henneke's debut novel "Ach, mein Kosovo!" (ET 23 November 2021 / PalmArtPress / ISBN: 978-3-96258-096-4") sheds light on a region that is far from being fully peacified.

The book tells a multifaceted story, largely based on real events, about a conflict that still today continues to flare up: that between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs.

The cornerstone and inspiration for the novel was a personal encounter of the author: the life story of a field doctor she met in Kosovo in 2003 set the ball rolling. His biography is similar to that of the protagonist.

In "Ach, mein Kosovo!" readers follow Taras Galani, a medical student. The young Kosovo Albanian lives in Germany and joins the UÇK in 1998 to do something about the oppression of his compatriots by the Serbs. Mechthild Henneke succeeds in creating an impressive panorama of the Kosovo war. In doing so, the novel questions why people go to war and what such a decision entails.

Mechthild Henneke, journalist and author in Berlin, lived in Kosovo for more than seven years between 1999 and 2008, where she worked for the United Nations and the OSCE. Before that, she was an editor at the Berliner Zeitung. Born in Westphalia, she studied political science and attended the Henri Nannen School of Journalism in Hamburg. After returning from the Balkans, she wrote her first novel.

 

 

 

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