Natasha Radojcic-Kane
Homecoming
A Novel

Homecoming is not a novel of the Bosnian War, but of its aftermath. It is told in a voice we have rarely heard: that of a Muslim soldier returning home to his village. Having been injured on the front, Halid is granted a leave from the army. But his homecoming is hardly joyous, and he soon discovers just how much has changed since the fighting began. Through Halid's difficult journey, Radojcic-Kane creates a complex allegory for the bitter ethnic struggle in the Balkans-and for all wars.

In the manner of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the war is absent, and yet its memory permeates every page. Radojcic-Kane chronicles Halid's first days in the village as he attempts to reclaim the fragments of his past life. He quickly encounters the upheaval that has occurred during the war and discovers relations between Christians and Muslims have deteriorated into hatred, and the peaceful village he once knew is nothing but a memory. Wracked by indecision about his future and nagging pain from his injury, Halid can't escape the memories of one episode from the war. Unable to face himself-or his mother-he sleeps in a field instead of his mother's house and he turns to drinking rakija, a strong local brandy.

Before even visiting his mother, Halid goes to the home of Mira, the woman he loved before the war and who married his closest friend, a Serbian Christian killed by a Bosnian land mine. Widowed and destitute, Mira now lives with her son at the home of her embittered mother-in-law. At the center of the story-and, in part, the cause of Halid's demise-is Halid's attempt to buy Mira from her mother-in-law for the price of a new tractor. Halid's war booty will nearly cover the cost of the tractor, but not quite. In an ill-advised attempt to win the balance needed in a poker game, Halid's plans for a tractor and his dreams for a life with Mira are quickly lost. His missteps at the poker table and his interactions with former friends and neighbors pull him into a downward spiral of tragedy that seems preordained.

English is Radojcic-Kane's second language, and her prose displays a refreshing, uncanny craftsmanship. Kirkus Reviews calls it, "A dark and well-executed tale with unsettling scenes and the grit of reality-as well as an acute sense of loss at the failure of a good but desperate man." Of the many novels of war written in the last fifty years, Natasha Radojcic-Kane's debut stands on its own as a powerful, unique testament to the ravages caused by conflict.

Natasha Radojcic-Kane was born in Belgrade in 1966. She graduated with a BA in English literature from Fordham University and earned an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia.