I recently finished reading an outstanding book, ‘The Sojourn’ by Andrew Krivak:
The Chautauqua Prize reviewers called The Sojourn “a novel of uncommon lyricism and moral ambiguity.” It tells the story of young Jozef Vinich, uprooted from a 19th-century mining town in Colorado by a shocking family tragedy, as he returns with his father to an impoverished shepherd’s life in rural Austria-Hungary. When war comes, Jozef is sent as a sharpshooter to the southern front, where he must survive the killing trenches, a perilous trek across the frozen Italian Alps, and capture by a victorious enemy.
The photograph was taken on the streets of Bratislava in 2006; it seems to convey the spirit of Josef’s story.