Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: My Cat Yugoslavia
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1990
WEBSITE:
CITY: Helsinki
STATE:
COUNTRY: Finland
NATIONALITY:
Born in Kosovo * http://www.salomonssonagency.se/pajtim-statovci * http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2144539/pajtim-statovci * http://www.npr.org/2017/04/18/523586189/my-cat-yugoslavia-needs-a-good-brushing
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Kosovo, 1990; immigrated to Finland.
EDUCATION:Attending the University of Helsinki and Aalto University School of Arts, Design, and Architecture.
ADDRESS
CAREER AWARDS:
Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, “Best Debut,” 2014, for My Cat Yugoslavia; Toisinkoinen Literature Prize, 2016, for Heartlines.
WRITINGS
Also author of the novel Heartlines.
SIDELIGHTS
Pajtim Statovci is a writer and novelist based in Helsinki, Finland. He was born in Kosovo, but immigrated to Finland with his family when he was two years old, noted a writer on the Penguin Random House Website. He studies comparative literature at the University of Helsinki and screenwriting for film and television at Aalto University/
Statovci’s debut novel is titled My Cat Yugoslavia. The book earned him the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize, one of Finland’s top literary awards, for best debut, noted a writer on the Salmonsson Agency Website. The jury that awarded the prize praised Statovci’s ability to combine the dreamlike with the realistic, and give old symbols new meaning and power,” the Salmonsson Agency Website writer noted.
In My Cat Yugoslavia, cats and snakes have prominent roles, and they bring “levity and surrealist texture to an otherwise grim story about a Kosovar family’s new life in Finland,” observed Brendan Driscoll in a Booklist review. The storyline follows two major characters: Bekim, a young gay Muslim who lives in Finland, and his mother Emine, who married an abusive, domineering man and who left Kosovo to escape the perpetual military conflicts that erupted there. Mother and son are estranged from each other, although both are seeking a better life. For her part, Bekim dreamed of marrying a handsome man who would be a good husband and father, but she ends up with the brutish Bejram. In Finland, Bejram becomes even more difficult to deal with, distancing himself from his family and others whenever he isn’t outright alienating them with his behavior.
Bekim is dissatisfied with his life in Finland also, but manages to at least put on a facade of respectfulness and productivity as a college student. At home, his only companion is an enormous boa constrictor. He lets the snake roam free through his apartment, often letting it coil around his body. The lonely Bekim wants someone he can share his life with, but he is emotionally unable to connect. While spending time in a gay bar, Bekim meets the highly unusual cat of the book’s title, a trash-talking, booze-swilling, well-dressed feline who seems to be coming on to him. “The reality here becomes hard to parse, and it’s unclear if the cat is whimsical or a reflection of Bekim’s disturbed mental state,” observed a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Bekim and the cat strike up a friendship, even though it is an abusive one, and Bekim finds himself following the domineering cat’s advice.
“Strange and exquisite, the book is a meditation on exile, dislocation, and loneliness,” observed New Yorker contributor Mckenna Stayner. A Kirkus Reviews writer found it to be “a fine debut, layered with meaning and shades of sorrow.” Ann Hulbert, writing in the Atlantic, remarked: “This dark debut has a daring, irrepressible spirit.” Lisa Rohrbaugh, in a Library Journal review, commented: “Statovci is a tremendous talent,” and concluded that My Cat Yugoslavia “has an intensity and power that demands a second reading.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Atlantic, April, 2017, Ann Hulbert, review of My Cat Yugoslavia, p. 40.
Booklist, March 1, 2017, Brendan Driscoll, review of My Cat Yugoslavia, p. 38.
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2017, review of My Cat Yugoslavia.
Library Journal, February 1, 2017, Lisa Rohrbaugh, review of My Cat Yugoslavia, p. 76.
New Yorker, July 3, 2017, Mckenna Stayner, “Briefly Noted,” review of My Cat Yugoslavia, p. 69.
Publishers Weekly, February 13, 2017, review of My Cat Yugoslavia, p. 48.
ONLINE
National Public Radio Website, http://www.npr.org (April 18, 2017), Michael Schaub, “My Cat Yugoslavia Needs a Good Brushing,” review of My Cat Yugoslavia.
Penguin Random House Website, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/ (November 5, 2017), biography of Pajtim Statovci.
Salmonsson Agency Website, http://www.salmonssonagency.se/ (November 5, 2017), biography of Pajtim Statovci.
Pajtim Statovci
Photo of Pajtim Statovci
Photo: © Pekka Holmstrom
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAJTIM STATOVCI was born in 1990 and moved from Kosovo to Finland with his family when he was two years old. He currently lives in Helsinki, where he is studying comparative literature at the University of Helsinki and screenwriting for film and television at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. My Cat Yugoslavia is his first novel.
Pajtim Statovci
Pajtim Statovci (b. 1990) moved from Kosovo to Finland with his family when he was two years old. His debut novel, My Cat Yugoslavia, relates in sensitive and finely tuned prose the inner conflict and questions about one’s identity that immigration, homosexuality, and the past might stir. The novel, published in 2014, received widespread acclaim among critics and readers alike, and Statovci won the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize in the category ‘Best Debut’. The awarding jury praised the still only 24-year-old author’s ability to combine the dreamlike with the realistic, and give old symbols new meaning and power. At present, Pajtim Statovci studies comparative literature at the University of Helsinki, and screenwriting at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
Awards
Shortlisted for the Future of Finnish Culture award (the Future of Finnish Culture award) Finland 2017
Toisinkoinen Literature Prize Finland 2016
Shortlisted for the Flame Bearer Prize (Best Novel) Finland 2015
Shortlisted for the Young Aleksis Literature Prize Finland 2014
Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize (Best First Novel) Finland 2014
Bibliography
Tiranan sydän
Heartlines
2016Literary
Kissani Jugoslavia
My Cat Yugoslavia
2014Literary
Related news
Sofi Oksanen and Pajtim Statovci nominated for awards at The Culture Gala of the Century
14 Jun 2017
Sofi Oksanen and Pajtim Statovci have both been nominated for awards at The Culture Gala of the Century in Finland. The gala will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence, and the past 100 years’ cultural heritage.
Sofi Oksanen has been nominated in the Internationalization category for the Ambassador of Finnish Culture award. She shares the category with among else director Aki Kaurismäki.
Pajtim Statovci is a nominee for the Future of Finnish Culture award in the Future category, which turns an eye to the individuals that will shape contemporary Finnish culture in the years to come.
The Gala of The Century will take place in Turku on October 18th. It will be broadcast live by Finland’s national public broadcasting company, YLE.
Sofi OksanenPajtim Statovci
Pajtim Statovci winner of the Toisinkoinen Literature Prize
28 Oct 2016
Pajtim Statovci’s Heartlines has won the Toisinkoinen Literature Prize 2016. Heartlines is Statovci’s second novel to date and tells the rich and beautiful story of a young man’s odyssey through the cities of the world. The panel deciding the winner of the Toisinkoinen Literature Prize motivated their choice of Heartlines thusly:
“The novel skillfully and grippingly carries the reader through its different settings, through the metropolises of the world as well as mythical landscapes, while also managing to truly move the reader. Carefully composed characters and the fantastic, highly expressive language create a harmonious and stirring ensemble that reminds us of the power inherent in stories.”
Pajtim Statovci
Pajtim Statovci shortlisted for the Toisinkoinen Literature Prize
10 Oct 2016
Pajtim Statovci’s second novel Heartlines has been shortlisted for the Toisinkoinen Literature Prize 2016. The winner of the award will be chosen by a panel of Finnish literature students at the University of Helsinki. The award ceremony will take place on October 27th.
Pajtim Statovci
‘Heartlines’ published in Finland
18 Aug 2016
In the devastation of post-Communist Albania, a place where first rulers, then beliefs have collapsed and died, the young Bujar and his friend Agim decide to seek out a new beginning. As they travel they carry with them the age-old stories of their ancestors, tales in which an Albanian’s honor can conquer the weaknesses of humankind.
Years later a young man’s odyssey through the cities of the world comes to an end in a cold country by the sea. Will the man’s fragmented story finally reach closure, and can a broken mind ever truly find peace?
Pajtim Statovci’s second novel Heartlines is a breath-taking story about the human condition and our desire to be seen.
Pajtim Statovci
New Author - Pajtim Statovci
11 Apr 2016
Pajtim Statovci (b. 1990) moved from Kosovo to Finland with his family when he was two years old. His debut novel, My Cat Yugoslavia, relates in sensitive and finely tuned prose the inner conflict and questions about one’s identity that immigration, homosexuality, and the past might stir. The novel, published in 2014, received widespread acclaim among critics and readers alike, and Statovci won the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize in the category ‘Best Debut’. The awarding jury praised the still only 24-year old author’s ability to combine the dreamlike with the realistic, and give old symbols new meaning and power. At present, Pajtim Statovci studies comparative literature at the University of Helsinki, and screenwriting at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
Pajtim Statovci
My Cat Yugoslavia
Brendan Driscoll
Booklist.
113.13 (Mar. 1, 2017): p38.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
My Cat Yugoslavia.
By Pajtim Statovci. Tr. by David Hackston.
Apr. 2017. 272p. Pantheon, $25.95 (9781101871829).
Cats and snakes feature prominently in Statovci's novel, adding levity and surrealist texture to an otherwise grim story
about a Kosovar family's new life in Finland. Young Emine marries handsome but brutish Bajram, who is not traditional
enough to kill a cat in front of her, as wedding-night custom dictates. Years later, her youngest son, Bekim, falls into an
abusive relationship with a talking cat who, despite his good looks, turns out to be a sadistic jerk. Before that, Bekim's
most intimate relationship was with the gigantic boa constrictor he allows to roam free in his apartment. Though
estranged, mother and son seek similar emancipation from patriarchy, prejudice, and their Yugoslavian past, but
Finland, with its rules and various forms of coldness, does not easily yield the freedom they desire. Alternating between
two first-person narrators and swerving between realism and allegory, Statovci sacrifices some linear continuity to
emphasize broader points about his characters' hybrid identities and disjunctive experiences. Will symbolism, whimsy,
and emotionally manipulative animals resonate with international audiences? Finland bestowed the Helsingin Sanomat
Literature Prize for best first novel.--Brendan Driscoll
Driscoll, Brendan
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Driscoll, Brendan. "My Cat Yugoslavia." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 38+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA488689484&it=r&asid=e4b632375b7a4ed33070775dd92512e0.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A488689484
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508100142753 2/4
Statovci, Pajtim: MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Statovci, Pajtim MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA Pantheon (Adult Fiction) $24.95 4, 18 ISBN: 978-1-101-87182-9
Winner of Finland's highest literary honor for best debut novel, an elegant, allegorical portrait of lives lived at the
margin, minorities within minorities in a new land.Bekim is Muslim and gay, the son of a woman who left fragmenting
Yugoslavia with her domineering, moody husband for a new life in Finland. Now, in Helsinki, where Bekim is not
entirely at home though a productive citizen, he has come into the orbit of a talking cat who sucks down alcohol and has
any number of dislikes and--well, pet peeves. "Gays. I don't much like gays," says the cat, before amending the remark
to, "Obviously, I like all kinds of toms, but I hate bitches!" That explains the cat's presence in a gay bar, perhaps, but it
does nothing to relieve Bekim's angst, especially when the cat hisses that no one will ever love him. His mother, Emine,
meanwhile, has grown from an utterly ordinary person, "only pretty and good at housework, or so I'd been told," as she
says, to a self-aware woman who finally frees herself from a bad marriage and a life where "our entire existence hung
on our children who had decided to have nothing to do with us." Statovci's characters might prefer to live quietly on the
sidelines, but events in Kosovo overturn their lives, even from afar; witnessing one in a long series of atrocities on the
news, Emine concludes, "God did nothing with that child because there was no God." Strangers in an uncomprehending
new home, Statovci's actors make do, alert for possibilities of happiness, however unattainable. Statovci doesn't quite
make full use of his fantastic cat; though he invests his creation with plenty of personality, Statovci lacks Mikhail
Bulgakov's flair for satirical meaning-making through the use of animal characters. As it is, though, the creature turns
out to be a complex character, tormented as well as a tormentor. And that's not to speak of Bekim's pet snake, who has
dangerous ideas of his own. Allegorical but matter-of-fact: a fine debut, layered with meaning and shades of sorrow.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Statovci, Pajtim: MY CAT YUGOSLAVIA." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480921998&it=r&asid=fb249b2140efd8f545c1d421f90fd9cc.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480921998
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508100142753 3/4
My Cat Yugoslavia
Publishers Weekly.
264.7 (Feb. 13, 2017): p48.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
My Cat Yugoslavia
Pajtim Statovci,trans. from the Finnish by David Hackston. Pantheon, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-101-87182-9
In current day Helsinki, Bekim, an isolated, gay, 20-something ethnic Albanian born in Kosovo, acquires a boa
constrictor and intentionally keeps it out of its terrarium, preferring to let the snake wrap itself around his body instead.
Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, readers follow Bekim's history: the story of his mother and father before they were
married and he was born, the Serbian destruction of Islamic Albania, and the family's eventual move to Finland. As
each story line progresses, the gap between the two timelines closes, illustrating how the past and the present have
shaped Bekim. The chapters featuring Bekim's mother, beginning in 1980 when she was 15 years old, powerfully reveal
her strained marriage to a traditional, domineering man and her endless domestic responsibilities because "a Kosovan
home should always look tidy and shouldn't look lived in." She works tirelessly to placate her husband and protect her
children, a task made infinitely more difficult once the family is displaced to cold, foreign Finland. But the thread
following adult Bekim is far more difficult to track, particularly once he meets a cat in a bar: "he [the cat] raised his
front paw to the top button of his shirt, unbuttoned it, and began walking toward me." The reality here becomes hard to
parse, and it's unclear if the cat is whimsical or a reflection of Bekim's disturbed mental state. While the story of the
family is compelling, the juxtaposition with the talking cat becomes a jarring counterpoint, interfering with the
otherwise important exploration of the aftershocks of war. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"My Cat Yugoslavia." Publishers Weekly, 13 Feb. 2017, p. 48. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA482198141&it=r&asid=88545e203e5cfd3a92f482442a5b1735.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A482198141
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508100142753 4/4
Statovci, Pajtim. My Cat Yugoslavia
Lisa Rohrbaugh
Library Journal.
142.2 (Feb. 1, 2017): p76.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* Statovci, Pajtim. My Cat Yugoslavia. Pantheon. Apr. 2017. 272p. tr. from Finnish by David Hackston. ISBN
9781101871829. $24.95; ebk. ISBN 9781101871836. F
Told in alternating chapters, this powerful story of Albanian refugees from Kosovo now living in Finland (like the
author himself) starts with the encounter of two gay men who met in a chatroom. The lonely younger man, Bekim, is
searching for someone with whom to share his life. In alternate chapters, we read about the courtship and marriage of
Bekim's parents, Emine and Bejram, and of Emine's youthful dreams of a handsome, caring husband and children of her
own. After a traditional wedding and the birth of their children, the family flees to Finland to escape the numerous
military conflicts in Kosovo. Unfortunately, Emine and Bejram's life continues to deteriorate, and Bejram becomes even
more melancholy and abusive, alienating himself from everyone. Vacationing in his homeland, he realizes he no longer
fits in there any more than he does in Finland and feels thoroughly unwanted; he is living in a kind of purgatory. We see
the dramatic effects of this dysfunctional life on Bekim, who as a child was terrorized by nightmares of snakes and now
adopts a boa constrictor as a pet. In addition, Bekim follows the advice of a highly unusual talking cat. VERDICT
Statovci is a tremendous talent. This debut novel--a deserved winner of the Helsingin Sanomat Literature Prize for Best
First Novel in 2014--has an intensity and power that demands a second reading. [See Prepub Alert, 10/10/16.]--Lisa
Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Rohrbaugh, Lisa. "Statovci, Pajtim. My Cat Yugoslavia." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 76. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479301224&it=r&asid=659026d9476e2f9a2c3fdb81d8ed755e.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479301224
Briefly Noted
Mckenna Stayner
The New Yorker. 93.19 (July 3, 2017): p69.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Conde Nast Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
http://www.newyorker.com/
Listen
Full Text:
Briefly Noted
[...]
My Cat Yugoslavia, by Pajtim Statovci, translated from the Finnish by David Hackston (Pantheon). This debut juxtaposes the story of a young bride in Kosovo, in the nineteen-eighties, with that of her son, Bekim, twenty years later-who, like the author, is a gay Kosovar refugee living in Finland. Bekim is isolated, angry, haunted by memories of a violent father, and desperate for intimacy. He buys a boa constrictor, allowing it to wrap itself around him while he sleeps "like a protective wall, a halo." At a gay bar, he meets a talking cat-cruel, like his father-and the two begin a volatile relationship, which, echoing that of Bekim's parents, leads him to confront his past. Strange and exquisite, the book is a meditation on exile, dislocation, and loneliness.
My cat Yugoslavia: Pajtim Statovci, translated by David Hackston: pantheon
Ann Hulbert
The Atlantic. 319.3 (Apr. 2017): p40.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Atlantic Media, Ltd.
http://www.theatlantic.com
Listen
Full Text:
PAJTIM STATOVCI, who left Kosovo for Finland with his family as a toddler in the early 1990s, knows how to disorient--and disarm. Who would have guessed that an award for the best first novel written in Finnish would go to a book that features a talking cat, a pet boa constrictor, an Albanian arranged marriage, and a lonely gay immigrant?
The Yugoslav wars figure in the background, but for Statovci's alternating narrators, a mother and her son, the nightmare of embattled identity neither begins nor ends with the family's flight from Kosovo. Emine finds herself entrapped in her village outside Prishtina well before the fighting starts. Well after it is over, Bekim drifts into young adulthood in urban Finland, feeling deeply estranged.
A tyrannical husband in the old country, who proves a brutally aloof father in the new, plays a crucial part in their plights. So, in a sinister yet also liberating way, do the cat and the snake. This dark debut has a daring, irrepressible spirit.
'My Cat Yugoslavia' Needs A Good Brushing
April 18, 20177:00 AM ET
MICHAEL SCHAUB
My Cat Yugoslavia
My Cat Yugoslavia
by Pajtim Statovci and David Hackston
Hardcover, 255 pages purchase
About 50 pages into Pajtim Statovci's debut novel, the protagonist Bekim meets a cat in a Finnish gay bar. The cat is wearing human clothes and singing along to Cher's "Believe," and Bekim, for reasons that are not quite adequately explained, is immediately attracted to him. "The cat was such a wonderful, beautiful, gifted interpreter that I took him in my arms without waiting for any indication to do so, and straightaway I noticed that his silky smooth fur smelled good and that his body was muscular from top to tail," Bekim gushes. "The mere sensation of touching it was so magical that, goodness me, I needn't have touched anything ever again."
You might be able to suspend your disbelief so far, but, goodness me, Statovci has more twists up his sleeve. Bekim is still enamored with the cat even after he learns that it doesn't care for immigrants or gay men. (Bekim belongs to both groups.) It's not clear on at the very least two levels why a homophobic cat would be in a gay bar in the first place, but My Cat Yugoslavia is such a stubbornly nonsensical book that you learn early on to stop asking questions.
Statovci's novel is essentially two stories intertwined. The first follows Bekim, who moved to Finland from Kosovo as a child. He's a resentful young man, wounded by attacks from Finns on his Muslim heritage and homosexuality. A college student who works odd jobs, he's unable to mask his hatred of his fellow students: "I treated them with disdain, contempt, I despised their lifestyles, their choices and problems. ... For what did they know about real life and real suffering? Absolutely nothing."
Lonely, Bekim buys a boa constrictor as a companion before he meets the cat, who may or may not be the titular feline. (Later in the book, he meets an actual cat when he travels to Kosovo, but it cannot talk, much less sing, and Bekim does not develop a crush on it.) His relationship with the singing cat is stormy; the cat is a selfish and hateful freeloader, which, at least for a while, doesn't seem to bother Bekim.
The book reads like two novels shoehorned into one, and neither one is fully realized.
The other story — a much more conventional one — follows Bekim's mother, from her childhood in Kosovo to the time her children are adults. Emine is married off to a man who she soon finds out is verbally and physically abusive: "[N]othing pleased him, and he flew into a rage with increasing regularity. ... He lived out his days in his own mind and became frustrated when reality didn't match the life he had imagined."
Bekim and his siblings (who are only mentioned in passing) learn to be afraid of their father, although Bekim's fear quickly turns to hate. "I wanted him to suffer for as long and as painfully as possible," he seethes. "I wanted him to choke underwater, suffocate in an airless wooden box, thrashing like a fish on dry land." Eventually, Bekim's father, embittered by his lack of success, goes to Kosovo. Bekim does too, but doesn't stay for long.
My Cat Yugoslavia was published in its original Finnish in 2014, when Statovci was in his early twenties, and his age shows here. It's a brash and ambitious novel, but too often Statovci lets his ideas get the better of him — he definitely has something to say about abuse, prejudice and family dynamics, but it's lost in the sheer absurdity of the story. The book reads like two novels shoehorned into one, and neither one is fully realized.
It doesn't help that the characters in the novel feel underdeveloped. Bekim is a bit of a cipher; at the end of the book, we don't know much about him besides his loneliness and resentment. Emine isn't given much to do except play the silent victim, reacting to her husband's brutality. And then there's the cat (the talking one), who's uniquely mean and unpleasant. Characters needn't be likable, of course, but whatever charm Bekim sees in the sociopathic feline is left to the reader's imagination.
That's not to say that Statovci is an untalented writer. He's clearly capable of constructing strong sentences, and it's undeniable that his imagination is boundless. It wouldn't be surprising if his next book succeeds where this one fails. But My Cat Yugoslavia, though clever in parts, is, unfortunately, too unpolished and immature to be considered anything more than a valiant attempt.