Frano, a Croatian living in the capital city of Zagreb, spent several years of his youth in Mostar, one of the cities that suffered most greatly in the civil war that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. Now he remembers…
In 1991, after the death of his mother and his grandmother, his father, stunned with grief, sends the young man to live for a time with his family in Mostar. But adjusting to a new school isn’t easy, especially when you’re known as “the new kid from the big city.” And all the more with the first signs of nationalist disturbances breaking out, signaling the war to come. Most of the inhabitants of Mostar are Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Catholics; there are fewer Orthodox Serbs. But that doesn’t stop Frano, a Catholic, from growing up and raising hell with his Serb friend Goran. Unfortunately, Frano will swiftly learn about the differences that divide people: political, religious, geographic.
A wonderful work of humanity and of love, The Roofs of Mostar is a semi-autobiographical tale by an author with a profoundly Slavic sensibility, who bears witness to the harshness of war.
This is a complete story, notable for its striking simplicity. Petrusa is a young author of enormous potential. He uses his stories to rid himself of his demons, while displaying his evident yearning for friendship and peace.
