Catch the Rabbit
SynopsisPlot
It’s been twelve years since inseparable childhood friends Lejla and Sara have spoken, but an unexpected phone call thrusts Sara back into a world she left behind, a language she’s buried, and painful memories that rise unbidden to the surface. Lejla’s magnetic pull hasn’t lessened despite the distance between Dublin and Bosnia or the years of silence imposed by a youthful misunderstanding, and Sara finds herself returning home, driven by curiosity and guilt. Embarking on a road trip from Bosnia to Vienna in search of Lejla’s exiled brother Armin, the two travel down the rabbit hole of their shared past and question how they’ve arrived at their present, disparate realities.
Story
About this book
Sara and Lejla grew up close in Bosnia, but twelve years of silence have passed when an unexpected phone call pulls Sara back. She has been living in Dublin, distancing herself from the language and memories of her earlier life. Lejla, still magnetic and unsettling, draws Sara into returning home. What follows is a road trip from Bosnia to Vienna, where the two women set out to find Lejla's brother Armin, who lives in exile.
The trip reopens buried questions about their friendship, about a misunderstanding that split them apart, and about the fractured country they share as a backdrop. Lana Bastašić sets their personal story against post-war Bosnia, where the effects of conflict sit alongside ordinary life. The novel moves between past and present, layering childhood episodes with scenes from the road. Sara's guilt and curiosity keep her bound to Lejla even as old tensions resurface.
Bastašić's debut novel won the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature. Its route runs from Bosnia through the roads of a changed region toward Vienna, a city that has long received people leaving the Balkans. The search for Armin gives the two women a destination, while their older questions about each other stay unresolved.
