One Flew Over The Kosovo Theater, PPB

Perhaps the first full-throated response to the war in Kosovo to be published in English, this anthology – in a Serbian translation – crossed the border between the two countries in 2014 as one of the first works to break a literary silence of three decades. Every play included here – even the two comedies – proceeds from traumatic circumstances or the wake of them: The Basement is a family drama set in the thick of the NATO bombing and the forced expulsion from Pristina. The Finger draws its impetus from a vacuum, from a gaping disappearance and a family bereft. In Slaying the Mosquito, exile carries with it all the derangement of the war. Set in the days approaching Kosovo’s independence, the eponymous One Flew over the Kosovo Theater lampoons the new government. The Crossroads Café is a sweeping farce with a full cast of characters recapitulating the occupation and conflict. One Flew over the Kosovo Theater is more than a collection of plays. It is something that verges on a saga.