Twice Born
A Novel
-
-
4.7 • 15 Ratings
-
-
- $4.99
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
This international bestseller is a sweeping portrait of motherhood, loss, and redemption in war-torn Sarajevo.
Filled with memories of the four-year siege of Sarajevo, Gemma reluctantly boards a flight from her native Rome to that war-scarred city with her sixteen-year-old son, Pietro. She hopes to teach her son about the city of his birth and about Diego, the father he never knew. Once there Gemma is caught between the present and the past, reliving her love affair with Diego, their determination to start a family, and their deep connection to Sarajevo even as the threat of war loomed.
In this haunting and sophisticated novel, Mazzantini masterfully probes the startling emotional territory of what makes a family-particularly what makes a mother. As the fate of Sarajevo converges with Gemma's all-consuming desire to have a child we see how far she is driven, in a stunning revelation that is both heartbreaking and cathartic.
Brought to life by an unforgettable cast of characters, Twice Born is a tale of the acts of brutality and generosity that war can inspire. A blockbuster bestseller in Mazzantini's native Italy, it has taken Europe by storm and will soon be published around the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Mazzantini's eloquent second novel translated into English (after Don't Move), Italian grad student Gemma travels to Sarajevo when it is still part of Yugoslavia for her doctoral thesis. Gojko, a maniacal Bosnian yo-yo salesman and poet, is her guide, and on the day she is to return to her fianc in Rome, Gojko introduces her to Diego, an impulsive, young Italian photographer from Genoa with a criminal and heroin-using past, and they spend one impassioned night together. Gemma marries, divorces; she and Diego come together in Italy and marry as the situation in the Balkans begins to deteriorate while the couple suffer their own torment trying to conceive a child. Their efforts to have a child result in convoluted relationships arranged by Gojko in Sarajevo, where they return, years later, as the city is falling apart. Gemma returns alone to Rome with a boy, born in Sarajevo. She names him Pietro and raises him as her son with a new husband, Giuliano, after Diego's death. Twenty-four years after her fateful meeting with Diego, Gemma travels again to Sarajevo and into her past, wanting to show Pietro the country of his birth and where his father died. Mazzantini expertly weaves together her characters' stories, jumping backwards and forwards in time and place, from Italy to Sarajevo as the brutality of the Bosnian war melds with the beauty and complexity of Gemma and Diego's passionate romance. If the loose ends tie up too easily in the final chapters, a captivating secret maintains the story's integrity. Mazzantini's haunting novel, beautifully written and skillfully crafted, proves that despite the hatred exposed by war, love persists, and even flourishes.
