Girl at War: A Novel

Girl at War: A Novel

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE,Â BOOKLIST, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE â€¢ ALEX AWARD WINNER â€¢ LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST â€¢Â LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMENâ€™S PRIZE FOR FICTION

For readers of The Tigerâ€™s Wife and All the Light We Cannot See comes a powerful debut novel about a girlâ€™s coming of ageâ€”and how her sense of family, friendship, love, and belonging is profoundly shaped by war.

Zagreb, 1991. Ana JuriÄ‡ is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatiaâ€™s capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Anaâ€™s idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Anaâ€™s sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.

New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though sheâ€™s tried to move on from her past, she canâ€™t escape her memories of warâ€”secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her countryâ€™s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before.

Moving back and forth through time, Girl at War is an honest, generous, brilliantly written novel that illuminates how history shapes the individual. Sara NoviÄ‡ fearlessly shows the impact of war on one young girlâ€”and its legacy on all of us. Itâ€™s a debut by a writer who has stared into recent history to find a story that continues to resonate today.

Praise for Girl at War

â€œOutstanding . . . Girl at War performs the miracle of making the stories of broken lives in a distant country feel as large and universal as myth.â€â€”The New York Times Book Review (Editorâ€™s Choice)

â€œ[An] old-fashioned page-turner that will demand all of the readerâ€™s attention, happily given. A debut novel that astonishes.â€â€”Vanity Fair

â€œShattering . . . The book begins with what deserves to become one of contemporary literatureâ€™s more memorable opening lines. The sentences that follow are equally as lyrical as a folk lament and as taut as metal wire wrapped through an electrified fence.â€â€”USA Today

â€œGripping . . . NoviÄ‡, in tender and eloquent prose, explores the challenge of how to live even after one has survived.â€â€”O: The Oprah Magazine

â€œPowerful and vividly wrought . . . NoviÄ‡ writes about horrors with an elegant understatement. In cool, accomplished sentences, we are met with the gravity, brutality and even the mundaneness of war and loss as well as the enduring capacity to live.â€â€”San Francisco Chronicle

â€œIntimate and immense . . . a writer whose own gravity and talent anchor this novel.â€â€”The New York Times

â€œAn important and profoundly moving reading experience.â€â€”The National

â€œRemarkable.â€â€”Julia Glass, The Boston Globe

â€œ[A] powerful, gorgeous debut novel.â€â€”Adam Johnson, The Week

â€œAn unforgettable portrait of how war forever changes the life of the individualÂ . . . a writer working with deep reserves of talent, heart, and mind.â€â€”Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-05-12
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-05-12
Format	Kindle eBook

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