Catch the Rabbit

2 ideas

1. Renaming as ethnic camouflage and self-erasure

   In wartime and post-war Bosnia, a name marks ethnicity, so Lejla becomes 'Lela' to pass as non-Muslim in a Serb-dominated town. The name change protects her from violence. It also forces her to disown part of who she is, and the people around her silently accept that erasure as normal. The injury of a divided society shows up less in open violence than in how ordinary it becomes to edit one's own identity.

2. The narrator's portrait reveals herself too

   Sara tells Lejla's story, but her account is shaped by envy, fascination and a need to possess her friend, so what she presents as Lejla's cruelty or wildness also exposes her own resentment and dependence. Her memory of Lejla has to be read for what it reveals about the teller as well as for what it says about Lejla.

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