Literary fiction · Kosovo
When the violence ends, the struggle over memory begins. The Silence That Remains follows Arben, Blerta and Afrim as they establish the Echoes Foundation, an archive intended to preserve the names, testimony and memories of people erased by conflict.
An anonymous message inside the locked archive room forces them to confront a harder question: what happens when memory itself is incomplete, manipulated or politically useful?
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An extract from Chapter 1: Snow and Silence
A light snow was falling. Arben stood at the edge of the valley just outside Gjakova, hands buried deep in his coat pockets, the cold biting through the fabric like it had been waiting for him. The sky was low and gray, thick with clouds that looked heavy enough to drop right into the hills. The field in front of him was quiet. Not peaceful; just quiet. A stretch of frozen earth, scattered with old tree stumps, blackened and broken. Some leaned, others looked like they’d been split by fire or forgotten by time. Snow had started to gather in the cracks, softening their jagged edges. From where he stood, they looked almost like headstones. He didn’t speak at first. Then, under his breath, he said, “Is this a cemetery… or something worse?” The sound of his own voice startled him. It felt too loud out here. He shifted his stance. The ground beneath his boots was hard and uneven. There was no mistaking what kind of place this was. Some parts of the land carry their memories close to the surface. This was one of them.
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© Falah Mousa. This is a short extract; the complete ebook is available for purchase.