Girlhood at War

Vjosa Musliu is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Her research focuses on international and European interventions and statebuilding. Her area of focus is primarily the Balkans and post-Soviet space. She is a co-founder of Yugoslawomen+ Collective, a collective of six academics from the post-Yugoslav space working in ‘Global North’ academia. She is the author of three books and dozens of journal articles in the field of international relations.

• PrefaceForeword by Aida A. HozicAcknowledgments1. Saša, the Serbian Policeman 2. A Slap in the Face 3. We Are At War4. The Night of the NATO Bombing 5. The Morning After 6. Hajde Da Ludujemo 7. The Crime 8. The Ladder, the Sniper and the Blue Jersey9. I Can’t Breathe!10. All Bread is Sacred; All Lives Are Sacred11. Of Guns and Bread12. They Will Find Me At Home13. Whatever We Can Buy. Whatever They Can Sell14. Road Trip15. To the End of the World16. Long Hair is Trouble17. Someone Here is Insane18. The Basement19. The Gift of Death20. Politics of Friendship 21. Everyone Wants Out Sometimes22. A Child’s Play23. Happily Ever After24. The Americans25. Adulthood Comes with Responsibilities26. Victims and Perpetrators 27. NATO Does Not Pull Out28. Statues Fall, Statues Rise29. Of Books and Rage30. The Crime Scene31. Kiss Dejan!32. Little Red Riding HoodEpilogue by Shkëlzen Gashi

What is it like to become unwanted in your country? And then, after being forcibly expelled, to try and make a home elsewhere? In 1999, as Serb troops ethnically cleanse Kosovo, a precocious fourteen-year-old girl finds herself acting as a translator for deployed American troops who are trying to make sense of this conflict in the heart of Europe. A quarter of a century later, Vjosa Musliu, now an accomplished academic, returns to this painful past. The result is an unflinching portrait of violence but also of survival against the odds, told with humanity, courage, and wit.