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“When I think about the war, I imagine that it isn’t real,” Valbona tells me during one of my frequent visits to her family home. “It seems like a movie. I mean, now I know how the movies are made. I saw houses burning, cows lowing frantically in their stables, people running…” Interrupting her sinister preface, Valbona pours us coffee and lights the first of her Marlboros while settling on the light brown shilte placed along the wood-panelled wall of the large empty living room.[1]

As if preparing for a monologue, she leans forward, rests her elbows on her knees and […]

War was on everybody’s lips. There was an impending sense of anticipation as Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia loomed large.[1] Television news reported on the steadily increasing tensions between Albanian and Serbian communities, public events were staged by both sides to remember the losses and atrocities committed during the last war, and KFOR – the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo – patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles. Would the declaration go smoothly? Would there be demonstrations? Would Serbia intervene with military attacks? It was hard to know.

These questions haunted Pranvera[2] who had just returned from the kitchen […]