When I set out on my trek around the world in the company of women writers I didn’t anticipate the challenges of finding contemporary fiction written by women from each country. This was naïve but also reflective of my ignorance of the history of literacy, literature, and women in many other countries. The current title is an example. I pulled this novel from my pile in part because my house painter two years ago was Albanian, a young man whose painting crew required him to learn several languages. Standing silent nearby on some mornings was his father, whom he’d recently brought over to the States.
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones fills the slot for Albania while underscoring the challenges of finding a novel by a woman who lived and wrote in her native land and native tongue. Dones was born in Albania, educated in Europe, and now lives in the US. She has written several novels, in both Albanian and Italian, and this one was written in the latter and translated into English. Under the Ottoman Empire, Albanians were forbidden from writing in their native tongue so many adopted Italian. Half of the story takes place in the US as the protagonist, Hana, tries to make a new life for herself. Still, I came away with a deeper understanding of a country I know little about.
Hana is on her way to the States to join her cousin, Lila, and the cousin’s husband and daughter, but she is still tied to her old land in ways unimaginable to those outside her culture. Orphaned at a young age and raised by her aunt and uncle, who are childless, she shows promise in her first-year college courses. After her aunt dies she cares for her uncle while continuing her college education in Tirana until traveling from her mountain home to see doctors and get medicine for her uncle becomes too dangerous. Fearful for her safety after his death, her uncle attempts to find a husband for her before he dies, but she rebuffs his efforts. She ultimately makes another choice. Her mountain village lives by a code that dates to the early Middle Ages, where clan feuds lock people into their homes, a woman traveling alone is fair game, and grinding poverty is the norm after years of living under the thumb of the Ottoman Empire and then the Communists. The only solution for Hana is to become a man, a custom sanctioned by the code ruling the northern mountain region of Albania.
In a family with no surviving males, a woman who commits to remaining a virgin for life may adopt the role of the man in the family, with all the freedoms and prerogatives such a change entails. She takes a male name, dresses as a man, and moves among men in the bars and cafes, celebrating with them and avoiding women. She drinks as men do, carries a rifle, and is accepted as one by all other males. This is a lifelong choice, and Hana becomes Mark for fourteen years.
When her cousin, Lila, writes to her from the US begging her to join her family. Hana/Mark at first says no. When she ultimately agrees, she knows she is once again making a life choice that will shut the door on all she has known.
The reader follows Hana/Mark through her life in Albania and then in the US as she adopts a new land and tries to discover her old persona, the woman she left behind at age nineteen. The story moves through the issues of gender identity, rural/urban conflict, and modern/traditional ways of life.
Written in a gentle, crisp style with astute observations of how men and women relate to each other, the story moves among a small cast of characters.
I would like to have known more about how the old culture of Albania interacts with the new, but nevertheless I found this story satisfying and enlightening.
