Crossing

Description

Amid the conflict and desolation of post-Communist Albania, teenage boys Agim and Bujar share restless dreams of escape. After Bujar's father dies and Agim's family discover him dressed in his mother's clothes, the pair flee to the Albanian capital of Tirana, hungry for a chance to shape their own lives. From Tirana to Rome, from Madrid to New York, Crossing charts the refugee's struggle for another identity and another story in a world that seems to offer only dead ends. This is a shape-shifter of a novel, by turns playful and heartbreaking, and its characters' efforts to cross boundaries of nationality, gender and sexuality make for an urgent address to our times.

Pajtim Statovci (b. 1990) moved from Kosovo to Finland with his family when he was two years old, and he holds an MA in comparative literature from the University of Helsinki. Originally published in Finland in 2014 and also available from Pushkin Press, his first novel, My Cat Yugoslavia, won the prestigious Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize. Crossing, his second novel, has also won awards in Finland. Both novels are being translated into more than a dozen languages.