Languages, Language Choice, and Multilingualism in Pajtim Statovci’s Novel Bolla

Antony Hoyte-West

Автори

Antony Hoyte-West Independent scholar, United Kingdom Автор

Ключови думи :

Albanian; Kosovo; identity; migration; Finnish literature

Абстракт

Works by the Finnish author of Kosovar origin, Pajtim Statovci, have become in-creasingly well-known over the last decade. The present study concerns his third novel, Bolla, originally published in Finland in 2019 and translated into English in 2021. It deals with the illicit love affair between Arsim, an ethnic Albanian, and Miloš, an ethnic Serb, in mid-1990s Pristina. Like Statovci’s previous works, the novel deals with weighty topics including war, violence, and ethnic strife, as well as questions of identity, love, and loss, all taking place against a tumultuous back-drop of conflict and migration. With the events of the novel occurring both in Kosovo and in a nameless locale somewhere in northern Europe, the two settings offer interesting material for interdisciplinary analysis from the interrelated perspectives of language and society. Based on a close reading of the work, this article aims to examine how languages, language choice, and multilingualism are depicted in the novel and the consequent role that they play in the narrative. This includes analysing the unique multilingual context of the Balkans, noting how language can commonly act as an important marker of ethnic and cultural identity, as well as some of the specifics of the northern European context, where linguistic aspects can also be key with regard to issues relating to immigration and integration. In focusing on these features, the article contributes to work on the portrayal of languages and multilingualism in twenty-first century literature.

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