Refugee's tale on shortlist for top Scots book prize

Published on Tuesday 4 March 2008 21:01

IT IS a little-known tale of courage and survival, written by an Albanian refugee who escaped ethnic cleansing after she caught a mercy flight from the Balkans to Glasgow for cancer treatment.

Shadow Behind the Sun, which tells the story of Remzije Sherifi and her family, had a print run of only 2,000 copies and was published by a small Dingwall company.

But yesterday, it was among the titles on the shortlist for Scotland's richest book awards alongside a line-up of eminent names.

AL Kennedy, Ali Smith, Andrew Marr, Alasdair Gray and John Burnside are all in the front ranks of the Sundial Scottish Arts Council awards.

In contrast to the attention around AL Kennedy's prize-winning novel Day, or Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain, her book came out last year from the Highlands publisher, Sandstone Press.

Volunteers helped Ms Sherifi on her English grammar and vocabulary. The book may not be as polished as its rivals, but Kosovo's recent declaration of independence from Serbia has made it uniquely topical.

A Scotsman reviewer called it "an enthralling read".

"The judges felt it was a significant new voice in the literary landscape," said Gavin Wallace, the SAC's head of literature, and chairman of the awards judges. "It's a very direct, personal, harrowing account of the Kosovan crisis. The way it relates to the experience of asylum seekers in Kosovo and everywhere else was very powerful."

Ms Sherifi lived in the town of Gjilan, Kosovo, until Serbs blew up their house and killed an elderly neighbour. The family fled to Macedonia.

In 1999 she was on a first flight of 145 Kosovan refugees to Scotland, with doctors diagnosing possible breast cancer.

She writes about the horror of the war in Kosova and how she, her husband and three sons started again, including in the book tales from other asylum seekers, with whom she now works in Glasgow.

The author, a former radio journalist, said: "This is the right time for people to know more about the truth about Kosovo and what Kosovan people went through," she said yesterday. "It's very hard to leave everything behind, you don't know the language, and there is all you bring on your shoulders that you had before, it is not understandable for people. I'm glad this book now is getting attention."

Seventeen titles in four categories are shortlisted in this year's awards, sponsored by Sundial Properties, for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and first book.

Writer and comedian Rory Bremner will announce the winners at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose in June. Category winners receive 5,000 and the overall winner of the Book of the Year a total of 25,000.

The writer John Burnside is shortlisted for both the fiction and poetry categories.

Marc Lambert, chief executive of the Scottish Book Trust, said: "It's an extraordinary list.

This is a shortlist which would grace the Booker Prize. These are Scottish awards but these writers are totally international."