Identity & Belonging

Explorations of self, belonging, and what it means to find your place.

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Sworn Virgin

Sworn Virgin follows Hana Doda, a young Albanian woman who chooses to live as a man under the traditional institution of the sworn virgin. In the isolated mountain communities of northern Albania, women who take this oath may assume male social roles, dress as men, and enjoy freedoms otherwise denied to them, provided they renounce marriage and sexual relationships. Hana makes this choice to escape an arranged marriage and gain control over her future. Years later, she leaves Albania and travels to the United States, where she must reconsider the identity she has constructed and the possibilities available to her in a different society. Dones explores gender, autonomy, tradition, and displacement, revealing the psychological costs of living according to restrictive social codes. The novel asks whether freedom can be achieved through rejecting one identity or whether genuine independence requires creating a new one.

Free

Free is Lea Ypi’s memoir of growing up in Albania during the final years of communist rule and the turbulent transition that followed. As a child, Ypi believes that her country represents a just and orderly society, interpreting its rules through the limited understanding of childhood. When the communist regime collapses, she begins to discover that the official stories she learned at school concealed a far more complicated reality. Her family history also challenges her assumptions about freedom, revealing how political ideologies and historical circumstances shaped the lives of previous generations. Moving between childhood memories and adult reflection, Ypi examines the meaning of liberty, the relationship between individual choices and political systems, and the difficulty of understanding the past without simplifying it. The memoir offers a nuanced exploration of how people reconstruct their identities when the foundations of their beliefs suddenly disappear.

About this theme

Books: 2
Countries: 72

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Congo, Democratic Republic

Dominican Republic

North Macedonia