Book talk

Girlhood At War. Interpreting War and Liberation in Kosovo 

Conférencière

Dr. Vjosa Musliu
Associate Professor of International Relations at Free University of Brussels

The book Girlhood At War. Interpreting War and Liberation in Kosovo tells the true story of a young girl growing up during the Kosovo war and its immediate aftermath following Kosovo's liberation by NATO troops in 1999. Through her embodied experiences, the book exposes the tangible and everyday acts and events of the war, providing brutal insight into the impact of war and the politics of subjugation. When the war ends in 1999, Vjosa believes she has received her own 'happily ever after'. She celebrates her thirteenth birthday happily wearing a US military uniform, holding an unbearably heavy unloaded gun as she becomes the favorite interpreter of the American NATO troops. She spends several months after the war occasionally translating between angry Albanians who now seek revenge against Serbs and NATO troops who insist on not picking sides; showcasing the impossibility of (re)building Kosovo with “both-sides-ism” becoming the modus operandi of the international intervening structures.