Courtney A. Brkic Selected Works

The war in the Balkans provides the striking backdrop for these emotionally resonant, morally challenging, and uplifting short stories. Brkic’s collection gives voice to people caught in situations beyond their control, as man, woman, and child struggle to survive and understand what it means to live beyond those you love. A man trapped in a cellar; a sniper overlooking a city street; a young woman whose father is convicted of war crimes. Each character challenges the reader’s notions of conflict by living lives of surprising self-awareness, deceit, and courage.

When free spirit Jadranka mysteriously disappears shortly after emigrating to America, her older sister Magdalena must leave their ancestral Croatian island home and follow her to New York City. Magdalena's search begins to unspool the dark history of their family, reaching back three generations to a country torn by war. This haunting and sure-footed first novel explores the legacy of betrayal and loss in a place where beauty is fused with hardship, and where individuals are forced to make wrenching choices as they are swept up in the tides of history.

When she was twenty-three years old, Courtney Angela Brkic joined a UN-contracted forensic team in eastern Bosnia. Unlike many aid workers, Brkic was drawn there by her family history, and although fluent in the language, she was advised to avoid letting local workers discover her ethnicity. Her passionate narrative of establishing a morgue in a small town and excavating graves at Srebenica is braided with her family’s remarkable history in what was once Yugoslavia. The Stone Fields, deeply personal and wise, asks what it takes to prevent the violent loss of life, and what we are willing to risk in the process.