On Teuta Shabani – Towler’s “Murders and Make up”

By SALI BYTYQI

The novel “Murders and Make up”, brings to Albanian readers the first novel of police genre, in which the author, Teuta Shaban – Towler, ventured into something no other Albanian author has so far, and naturally, found herself amidst a lot of challenges. The topic of unsolved murders in Kosova is both oversensitive and difficult to address. In this regard, the author faces immense difficulties. Often, when investigating these murders, investigators involve in search for motives, which usually distract them from the real perpetrators and they in stead end up arresting innocent persons. The investigators are usually in strain, because their sense leads them in opposing directions. Then, what is the real motif behind these murders: jealousy, revenge, ethnic motif? The author opted for the most unexpected motif: murders motivated by mental illness. The events in this novel spread throughout Kosova. They take place in Peja, Prizren, Mitrovica, Skenderaj and, at the end, in Prishtina. From the outside, the main plot gives one the impression that we are dealing with disconnected events; however, from the inside there is a line going alongside those who commit murders, and corresponds with the “philosophy” of the pathologic being, which finds satisfaction in killing and raping women. The murders happen on the scene, whereas the murderer is always behind the scene, deep in the background. It is similarity and repetition of disconnected cases that stand at the heart of composition structure of the novel.Whereas investigation of cases is delayed by lack of experience among the local investigators and by complexity of international police. More than once in the novel, the author takes a critical stance against the international police negligence, especially of those coming from eastern and underdeveloped countries; parallel to this, the author ‘speaks out’ in favor of the efforts by international police officers coming from America and other western countries. This complicated UNMIK Administration, in stead of involving in investigating different crimes, engage their efforts in opposite direction, ending investigations before even properly starting them.The novel also criticizes the hypocritical stance of journalists, who end up collaborating with the murders in their efforts to survive the unfair media competition.
In the end, we need to say that this novel finds an open space in the post-war Kosova, in a post-conflict society full of various traumas and in which internationals draft laws. The treading of Kosova in a new phase has made the material pre-conditions to come up with new ways of expression and for a new genre not ventured before in our country.