"Mites" - Chapter 2
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Mitrovica, Kosovo
15 min read
The article explicitly mentions 'a NATO-occupied bridge in Mitrovica' as a key setting. This divided city, split between ethnic Albanians and Serbs with its famous bridge guarded by international forces, provides essential geopolitical context for understanding the Kosovo setting and tensions underlying the narrative.
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Kosovo Force
1 min read
The story references NATO occupation and takes place in post-war Kosovo with international presence (German embassy workers, etc.). KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force deployed after the Kosovo War, explains the international military and diplomatic presence that forms the backdrop of this expat story.
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Kosovo Serbs
13 min read
The article mentions the 'Kosovo Serb enclave of Štrpce' and the protagonist's documentary about 'Yugoslavia's greatest bluesman' Milan Tešić. Understanding the situation of ethnic Serbs remaining in Kosovo after independence provides crucial context for the cultural and political landscape the characters navigate.
We continue the second week of PILCROW’s Inaugural Serialized Novel Contest with Chapter 2 of Gregory Freedman’s Mites. Over the next two weeks, we’ll serialize the first few chapters of our remaining Finalist’s unpublished novels, and then subscribers (both free and paid) will vote on a Winner to be fully serialized here on the Substack (Finalists are awarded $500; the Winner $1,000.)
Our Finalists for this round:
Seasons Clear, and Awe by Matthew Gasda
Mites by Gregory Freedman
Notes on the State of Virginia by Peter Pnin
We’re excited to have all of you as a part of this endeavor to forge a new path for fiction on Substack. If you believe in what we’re doing, please consider offering a paid subscription.
“Mites” tells the story of two expats in Kosovo and their buffoonish attempt to make a documentary film about Milan Tešić, Yugoslavia’s greatest bluesman. It takes the reader from a NATO-occupied bridge in Mitrovica to the most beautiful parking lot in Kaçanik, from the Kosovo Serb enclave of Štrpce to Pristina’s Old Jewish Cemetery. Along the way it examines the folly of searching for a home in a world where such places are going extinct, and the inflammations that such an innocent quest can produce.
Gregory Freedman is a writer currently based in Belgrade.
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Falling in love with a woman from afar was always a dicey proposition, especially for a middle-aged man who should know better. But doing so at a Pride parade made even less sense and prompted even more avenues of pain and disappointment to open up.
But I figured, first of all, that she probably wasn’t a total lesbian. She was draped in a rainbow flag and dancing at the front of the parade, sure, but that sort of behavior was perfectly consistent with that of any given mostly-straight woman from any given North American or Western European country. And I was pretty sure she was from one of those countries. She didn’t look like any Albanian I had ever seen and, by that point in my life, the number of Albanians I had seen was far above the international average.
So, sure, she probably identified as queer in some aspect, and maybe her pronouns were even she/them, but I felt in my loose, antibiotic-addled guts that she liked to have sex with ...
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