The Cat I Never Named cover art

The Cat I Never Named

A True Story of Love, War and Survival

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About this listen

It is 1992, and Bihac, Amra's hometown, is a multicultural city with Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. But when tensions escalate, the Serbs turn on their Bosnian neighbors. The Serbs control the army, and now they have peaceful Bihac surrounded.

Soon Amra and her family are dealing with starvation and the threat of brutal violence; school, friendships, and the attentions from a new boy have to take a back seat to finding food and the tragic fallout from rising bigotry and ethnic hatred. Through it all, a stray cat, Maci, serves as a guardian spirit to the entire family.

©2020 Amra Sabic-El-Rayess and Laura L. Sullivan (P)2021 Recorded Books Biographies Literature & Fiction Religion & Spirituality Cats
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I lived through this war so the book was very special, but is it really not possible to find someone who is bilingual in English and Bosnian to read it? the Bosnian words were so jarring and almost never pronounced correctly and for someone called Leila I thought at least the little Arabic in the book would be pronounced well, but no that was not great either. I contemplated contacting audible to re-narrate the book. It was not so bad that I gave up.on it as I did with fortune men where the narrator's Somali pronunciation was painful, but there needs to be greater care when choosing who reads a book which will have regular words and phrases in another language. The book deserves it and it shows the respect for the author and their background.

Regarding the book, it took me back to my childhood during this awful war and how much it took away from us. I identified with almost everything Amra went through (except the level of religiousity and my beloved animal was our guard dog). It is so beautifully described and puts into words so many of my feelings and thoughts and pain, and I'm sad the book is over. Thank you for writing the story of us the Bosnian Muslim children, Amra.

Great book, poor narration

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The only thing that I did not like about this book is the narration of someone who can not pronounce Bosnian words. Hopefully, someone who is bilingual will make a new version of the narration.

What I liked about this book is everything else. The perfectly described story even if it is harsh, it was our reality for most of the time.

Thank you so much for putting words on our childhood during this horrible war. I'm sad that story ended.

//Adis

My childhood is in this book too

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This was really interesting story with a very important message, although it does not show in depth the most cruel and disgusting face of war... Nonetheless I hate the end and what happened to Maci 😭

Maci is the best!

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