An Insect's Wing: Sarajevo By Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks’ book People of the Book: A Novel introduces the story of the Sarajevo haggadah, a Jewish book, throughout the chapters. She also shares all the stories it went through and the sacrifices people from different communities and backgrounds had to go through to keep the haggadah safe, to make it to today. In Brooks’ novel she discusses about different community languages that the characters use; however, the community I chose to talk about and that interested me was the Albanian community. The language is mostly used in the chapter “An Insect’s Wing: Sarajevo, 1940” where Lola, a young Jewish girl, experiences running and hiding away from the Nazis, coming back to Sarajevo, and being saved by a Muslim family that uses values of the Albanian community, beliefs, and language around Lola to protect her.

When the Kamal’s help protect Lola from the German soldiers, the Nazis, they do actions that could have affected their religion as a Muslim couple. This chapter also discusses example of a Muslim woman’s wedding and role as a wife. This will be an example of the values and beliefs that relate to the Albanian community and the Albanian women. My purpose to discuss this community is to inform readers about what its purpose is in the book and how it took part of saving the haggadah and Lola. The Albanian language has influences in the characters of Brooks’ novel, for example, Lola, Serif and Stela Kamal, where they use the language to shelter Lola from being captured by the