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Maka, a young Bosnian soldier, has survived three years under siege. When the enemy forces launch their final attack on his hometown, he must escape to the hills. But traversing the vast woods is a task against all odds: to stay alive, and to find his infant son and his wife, he is soon forced to make a desperate move.

Set against the harrowing background of raging guerrilla warfare and the genocide in Srebrenica, Father of One is, at heart, a story of deep humanity, compassion and love. It is the account of one man’s desire to reunite his family, separated by war, and of bonds unbroken by trauma, sustained by loyalty and tenacity. Writing in a voice that rings with clarity and authenticity, Jani Anttola lays open a dark moment in Europe’s recent history.

Enjoy an excerpt:

The old man they called Dedo died in September after a two-day storm. The wind blew from the south, bringing sea clouds, grey and ragged like used steel wool, that poured down on the valley and the gusts drove rain against the window planks, making them wet and dripping, with pooling water on the floor of the cell. Outside the camp the trees bent in the heavy wind and the hayfields were flat in the rain. It was a summer storm but it wasn’t warm: the police stayed holed up in their house and grey smoke puffed from the stovepipe and was ripped away flatly in the wind. The cops had reduced their perimeter to a few that huddled in the far corners. In their olive-green ponchos the guards looked like some strange, dark-glistening mushrooms behind the rain. Then, after the storm broke, the drizzle continued for a day and the hills were deep green and misty, and the rusty old silos of the batching factory stood out brightly in their crumbling yellow paint. There were pools of water on the paths between the barracks and tree branches blown across the yard and everything was washed out, fresh and silent.

That afternoon they were corralled into the third barrack. The hundreds of inmates stood waiting, packed in the hall now, happily surprised by the announcement of an additional tea portion. The previous police crew had repurposed the building as a prison canteen. On the low counter the inmates had built, a gas stove was alight. On its grate sat a fifty-litre, boiling aluminium kettle. Maka stood behind the cauldron with another inmate, a ladle in hand, feeling the heat from the little blue flames that flickered underneath.

Jani Anttola is a Finnish novelist and a medical doctor. In the 1990s he served in Rwanda with the French military and fought in Bosnia as a soldier of the Bosnian army. His works have been published in the UK and Finland. He has spent most of his adult life abroad, working in Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific.

Author website: https://www.jani-anttola.com/

Buy links

 

 

 

https://bookguild.co.uk/bookshop/historical/father-of-one/

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