The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo [Hardcover]

Paula Huntly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2003

In August 2000, Paula Huntley's husband took a leave of absence from his teaching post at a law school, and she resigned from her marketing job of thirteen years. Huntley's husband had signed on with the American Bar Association to help rebuild Kosovo's legal system. Not quite sure how she could be of any service in a country that had suffered so much, Huntley found a position at a private school teaching English to a group of Kosovo Albanians. In this inspiring diary of her experiences in Kosovo, Huntley describes the deep friendships she formed with her students and the remarkable book club that they created . . .

One day in a bookstore in Prishtina, Huntley stumbled upon a copy of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea and-judging that it was just the right reading level and length--she made copies of it for the group. Despite lingering concerns that this quintessential American writer so notorious for his machismo might not resonate, the story of the old man's struggle to bring in his big fish touched them deeply. So deeply in fact that, though the group went on to read other great American writers, a name for their club was born: The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo.

This book reveals both the fragility and strength of the human spirit. Neither a journalist nor a historian, Huntley describes her students' experiences during the war and the intimacy of the bond that she formed with them with a rare purity and directness. A vision of great hope, The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo reveals the power of human connection to bring about healing in even the most war-torn circumstances.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Huntley's husband volunteered for an American Bar Association project in Kosovo to help create a new legal system in the fall of 2000, the year after NATO bombing had ended. With trepidation, Huntley decided to go, too, enrolling first in a crash course on the teaching of English as a second language so she'd have something to offer. On arriving in Prishtina, she volunteered at a language school and started keeping this diary. Her (mostly Albanian) students became her personal connection to everyday life in Kosovo; this diary, where she recorded her impressions, became her way of sharing Kosovo with the world. There are the usual funny details of life in a foreign country, e.g., the laboriously translated menu that offered "chicken buttocks on screwers." Before long, however, her students' stories take center stage: how they survived the Serb roundups, tortures and killings. As a taxi driver explained, "Some men are hard as stones." Teaching supplies are scarce, so it's serendipitous that the one American-language paperback that Huntley came across is a copy of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, which she photocopied for a reading club she started. Initially leery-"God knows this country doesn't need anymore [sic] macho"-she was pleased to find her students responding to the strength and endurance of Hemingway's protagonist. Huntley and her husband returned home in April 2001, but stayed in touch, largely via e-mail, with their Kosovar friends. Huntley's journal not only shares their stories, but reminds readers that by volunteering, people get back more than they give.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In August 2002 Huntley made a decision to accompany her husband on an assignment to help build a legal system in war-ravaged Kosovo. In a move that would forever alter the core of her existence, Paula kept a journal of her experiences to memorialize and come to terms with the pain inspired by the tragic human stories she came across every day. The violence of the ethnic cleansing puppeteered by Milosevic in the late 1990s left the Yugoslavian province in shambles, but the indomitable spirit of the people stirred Paula to try and make a difference in her own way, and she volunteered to teach English to Albanian students anxious to grasp the language of freedom. By sharing with them Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, Paula bridges the language barrier to form a touching bond with the students in her class. Although she never intended for her journal to be published, its beautiful, soul-searching passages deserve to be embraced by the world. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (February 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585422118
• ISBN-13: 978-1585422111
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #953,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > Travel > Europe > Serbia & Slovenia
  • #59 in Books > History > Europe > Serbia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Both more and less than its cracked up to be, March 24, 2004

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo (Hardcover)

The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo is a wonderful tale of the virtues and rewards of volunteering to help those in countries less fortunate (at least for the present) than the US; at the same time, it's not exactly great literature or great writing. However, that's not what it's advertised to be, and it's not the aspiration of the author to compete with the writers of great literature. For how it came to be (a collection of emails to friends and family during the 8 months the author spent teaching English in Kosovo), this book more than meets its goal.
Paula Huntley went to Kosovo with her husband, who volunteered for an ABA project to help set up a new legal system for the new war-torn country. She took a crash course in teaching English as a second language and, once in Prishtina, Kossovo, quickly found a job teaching the language to a classroom of eager and charming Albanian students.
The book begins as Huntley's story but quickly evolves into being the story of the country and its inhabitants, specifically those who were blessed to be her students. Like volunteers everywhere, Huntley quickly learned that she was gaining and receiving far more than she was giving, in terms of compassion, understanding, insight, and personal growth.
It's not `literature,' but it's sure a terrific little book. Don't miss it. I learned a whole, whole lot about a part of the world about which I have very little knowledge.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This deeply touching memoir is destined to be a bestseller, March 15, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo (Hardcover)

To Paula Huntley's students it's Kosova, not Kosovo, like we Americans like to call that little war-torn country. That's just one of the changes Huntley had to get used to when she began teaching English to a group of Kosovar Albanians. Transplanted from her comfortable San Francisco life to Prishtina, Kosovo, Huntley began keeping a journal to express her struggles and triumphs in her new surroundings. Two years later, that same journal would be published as a book destined to be a bestseller.

Paula Huntley is the epitome of a great teacher --- one who goes above and beyond the call of duty to help her students succeed. One of her noble feats is organizing an extracurricular reading group for her students known as the Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo. As her students read Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, the parallels between their lives and the life of the old man become increasingly evident to both Huntley and her students. Through their interaction, both Huntley and her students learn the lessons of perseverance, faith and hope.

THE HEMINGWAY BOOK CLUB OF KOSOVO offers much more than the typical memoir. Through Huntley's masterful writing and reflections, the reader experiences the horrors that her students lived through during the Serbian genocide of Kosovar Albanians. A timely reminder of what war does to a country, THE HEMINGWAY BOOK CLUB OF KOSOVO gives great insights into the injustices occurring throughout the world.

This book contains a myriad of emotions. It elicits laughter as Huntley and her students struggle to break down cultural and language barriers. It evokes tears as you read of the losses the Kosovars experienced. It makes you angry, fills you with hope and drowns you in sorrow --- all at the same time. But most of all, it makes you think about all of the things you take for granted that Paula Huntley's students only dream of.

--- Reviewed by Melissa Brown

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sympathetic look at victims of war, July 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo (Hardcover)

Paula Huntley's remarkable journal of her eight months as a volunteer English teacher in Kosovo is that rare thing: A sympathetic, even loving look at the victims of war - in this case Kosovar Albanians - that does not at the same time demonize those in whose name the war was waged - in this case, the Serbs. Indeed, Huntley reminds us that racial, ethnic or national stereotyping, and the notions of collective guilt and collective innocence that accompany such stereotyping, is frequently at the heart of violence. In a journal entry that recounts her students' unwillingness to believe that any Albanian could have been responsible for the bus bombing that had just killed many Serbian civilians, Huntley comments, "Nor, I expect, do most Serbs believe that fellow Serbs could have committed atrocities in Bosnia or Kosovo."

Huntley's reminds us not only of our differences, but of our similarities, and of the common humanity that connects us to each other. Her deep belief in the power of human connection is the thread that winds throughout this lovely, moving book.