There are few places across Europe which have had the tumultuous story of Moldova in the 20th and 21st centuries. My greatgrandmother, for instance, spent most of her life in the same village while living in four different countries: she was born in the Russian Empire, went to school in Romania, resisted collectivisation and eventually gave in during the Soviet era, and got retired in the independent Republic of Moldova. I share her story in this book, as well as stories of other people with different backgrounds I interviewed, in an effort to create a polyphonic view of Moldova’s recent history. Chronologically, the book starts with the 1903 infamous Chisinau pogrom and it ends with the 2022 refugee crisis caused by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Geographically, the stories are rooted in Moldova but they cover the whole world thanks to the processes of migration that characterised all of the communities described in this book — Jewish, Roma, Armenian, Moldovan, Ukrainian, Russian etc. — at different points during history.

„U ruci držite roman koji obiluje licima koja su delimično nestala, delimično (ne)stvarna, na marginama istinitosti.

U hostelu Preko granice moguće je veđto spojeno i ujedinjeno sa nemogućim, ipak sve je izuzetno životno i materijalno, neknjiško. Lekićeva jezička izbrušenost i detaljistički pristup rubnim emocionalnim stanjima navodi preko granice očekivanja.“