These women were held against their will in camps, repeatedly raped by soldiers and sold amongst them during the Bosnian war. They are happily reunited, but Gota is also taken with Kosmos’s old lover and friend Edina who is helping other women prepare their witness statements for the upcoming trial in the Hague.
Later, she decides to travel to Sarajevo for work with the assumption that Kosmos will be there, and he is.
She returns to Canada to raise their child and works as a journalist to make ends meet while living a quiet life with her mother to help her. After a few passionate weeks he abruptly leaves her to travel back home, not knowing that Gota is pregnant. Gota is a young Canadian visiting Paris when she falls in love with a man named Kosmos. I could read anything written by Echlin and love it, I’m sure of that, but I also feel confidant in recommending her to many different kinds of readers because her mastery of language is something no one should miss out on.
But she never focuses on their pain alone, instead people’s pain becomes a part of the story that helps us view them as human first and foremost, those who would normally be labeled as victims only. Although I never formally reviewed it, I recall having the same reaction to her book The Disappeared, which also centers on those who are war-torn and traumatized. She writes with the beauty of a poet, and the empathy of a family member. The topic is obviously a difficult one, and there were times I felt like putting the book down, but believe me when I say you are in good, tender hands with Echlin. Her latest, Speak, Silence is a beautiful yet horrific meditation on women who are testifying at a trial at the Hague against the systemic rape they experienced during the Bosnian war. If you haven’t read a book by Kim Echlin yet, you really should.
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