Angjelina Marku’s ‘Winter Of The Century’ – Book Review
By Peter Tase
In early June 2020, Angjelina Marku, a renowned writer and novelist from the Republic of Kosovo, published her first Novel in the United States of America, entitled “Winter of the Century”.
Angjelina Marku was born on July 16th, 1968 in Gjakova, Republic of Kosovo. Mrs. Marku obtained a teacher’s certification diploma from the “Bajram Curri” Higher Pedagogical Institute in her hometown and for a few years acquired a valuable experience as a language teacher. She writes prose and poetry. Over the years she has participated in many poetry and literary festivals, received a number of awards from various poetry events. Mrs. Angjelina Marku is a member of the ‘‘Aleksandër Moisiu’’ Albanian League of Writers and Artists in Austria and is a member of the Executive Board of Revista ‘‘Dielli Demokristian’’ (“Demo Christian Sun” magazine) in Vienna, where she also lives with her family. “Winter of the Century” is her first novel.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sabahudin Hadžialić, of Sarajevo – Bosnia and Herzegovina: “Angjelina Marku is a movie editor having in mind scenes in this novel which proceed one after another as within the movie. Of silence. But, how to explain that silence within the novel because the storyteller should be loud within her expression to move our inner soul towards understanding of her goal? It is very simple.
Namely, the biggest pain is mute. Silenced. That is why she is loudly muting within the world of current civilization showing us the forgotten world from the edge of civilization who were not guilty ones for anything, but only being human. Simple as it is.”
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sabahudin Hadžialić has encompassed some valuable thoughts on Marku’s “Winter of the Century”: “Being in the same time within the capitol of the one of the oldest kingdoms of this part of the Europe, Vienna in Austria, she looks like a butterfly in the modern jungle, the insect with a wish to find a final place to rest before vanish into the dust of hope.
Marku’s hallucinations are an alternative reality, which empower her to survive within the area of many, for the purpose of one. Within the time when she is the only sad person on the ground. Multiple personalities presented within this novel are just a reflection of the lost soul of the writer who, having them written on the paper, becoming fulfilled person, above all.
Cold winter and snow as a synonym of closeness and rejection while people interactions are melting all the boundaries of their thoughts and restrictions. Through the devotion, love, and care. Extinction and darkness vs. interaction and light. Within the soul. Of human. Being faced with the death in vivo of her close relatives and even a soul mate.
Death is a part of living and living is a part of death. All depends on the way how we look at that. She, Angjelina, decided for the second one – “living is a part of death” and we can see that through the entire book. Re-read the book. To understand the meaning of death within the life. Of hers. Although, we all came from the Energy and we all will be back to the Energy of love. God? Yes, if there is any real one. For her there is. Above all, as the silence of the truth.”
