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Monumenta by Lara Haworth


Rating:

3 Stars


Themes:

Fiction, Novella


Thoughts:

This is a somewhat interesting book if you can get your head around the inner workings and interpretations, which I have to admit took me a moment or else it could have been a read in a day book. It is interesting that the massacre that is being memorialised is never actually declared/decided and everytime it is mentioned to anyone Serbian they say “which one” especially with the history of occupations. I also found the quote on an ethno-racist war interesting as Haworth stated that she wrote this in 2020 when the monuments around colonisation and the slave trade were being debated and pulled down in the news while Brits and Americans debated their own racist history. I did find the different POVs while still being in 3rd person was a little jarring, especially when it switched between the events and ‘hallucinations’ or ‘visons’ of the characters and different characters all in one chapter.


Favourite Quote:

“We need to stop denying that Serbia waged in ethno-racist war and that Serbia lost this war and find a way of representing our response ability and grief and the despair of the victims. Until we do that, Serbia cannot come to terms with the present of the future”


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