Once We Are Safe

In this award-winning novel from Italy, a family is forced to flee their home on the brink of the Bosnian War, leaving behind all that they know and forging ahead into a life they never asked for. Aida is just six years old when her family escapes the war bearing down on their village in Bosnia. But survival comes at a price. The home they make in Italy is safe, though not their own. Aida watches, helpless, as her parents grapple with a guilt and nostalgia she doesn’t understand. They yearn for a place that no longer exists, a place she barely remembers yet comes to resent for its lingering ghost. Not even the arrival of her baby brother seems to spark their hope for the future, but Aida refuses to drown in the past with her parents. As the family sinks deeper into grief and the scars of mental illness, Aida makes her own way forward, through adolescence and into adulthood, constantly searching for where she belongs. Aida and her family face their struggles quietly and alone, until tragedy forces them to come together once again. But amid the greatest heartbreak, hope always rises…even when it feels like there’s nothing left.