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Nikoletta Gjoni
from Tree of Blood and Milk
Drita, 2019
In the privacy of my own home when the curtains are closed, I can’t help but think about my first life and quietly remember that I have two birthdays; that I am a magnificent creature of dualities, even though the basis of my life has been firmly rooted in one identity over the other. As such, my life has been marked with sorrow and adventure and freedoms I could’ve never experienced as my parents’ daughter.
This realization occurs to me every so often when I feel I’ve hit a new stage of adulthood, as I fit more comfortably in this well-worn skin. Whatever memories come to me at night before sleep, I close the door on them and I’m back to what I’ve known for the last six decades: that becoming a burrnesha—a sworn virgin—gave me a new life and at eighteen-years-old, I was reborn.
Nikoletta Gjoni’s work has appeared in the 2023 Rising Stars London Independent Story Prize anthology and has been previously nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau prize, Best of the Net, and more. She was a 2024 scholarship recipient for the Salty Quill Writers Retreat and will be a 2026 writer-in-residence at the Chateau d’Orquevaux. View Gjoni's publications at www.ngjoni.com.
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