Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book presents a unique exploration of Albanian wartime rape survivors’ lives thanks to the exceptional access that twenty Albanian women granted the authors, despite the conspiracy of silence and the stigma that have enveloped sexual violence. Spanning over several generations and moving through the eventful decades of Kosovo history from the late 1970s to the present, the narrative weaves together survivors’ voices, as they remember their upbringing and marriage, the intrusion of politics into the domestic sphere, the violence of war, the struggle against trauma and stigma, and the will to repair their injuries. The book draws on the intimacy with individual narrators that is allowed by oral history to bring fresh insight into the lives of survivors too often framed by political or psychological abstractions. By allowing the readers to get closer to women whose lives were shaped by patriarchal rules and were undone by war, as they struggle to make sense of suppressed aspirations, unrecognized bravery, and relentless suffering, this oral history ultimately shows that they are the strongest link in their families and communities.</jats:p>