'When she is four years old Amra Pajalić realises that her mother is different. Fatima is loving but sometimes hears strange voices that tell her to do bizarre things. She is frequently sent to hospital and Amra and her brother are passed around to family friends and foster homes, and for a time live with their grandparents in Bosnia.
At sixteen Amra ends up in the school counsellor's office for wagging school. She finally learns the name for the malady that has dogged her mother and affected her own life: bipolar disorder. Amra becomes her mother's confidante and learns the extraordinary story of her life: when she was fifteen years old Fatima visited family friends only to find herself in an arranged marriage. At sixteen she was a migrant, a mother, and mental patient.
Surprisingly funny, Things Nobody Knows But Me is a tender portrait of family and migration, beautifully told. It captures a wonderful sense of bicultural place and life as it weaves between St Albans in suburban Australia and Bosanska Gradiška in Bosnia. Ultimately it is the heartrending story of a mother and daughter bond fractured and forged by illness and experience. Fatima emerges as a remarkable but wounded woman who learns that her daughter really loves her.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Amra Pajalić recounts her childhood exploits and relationships with no holds barred.'
'Things Nobody Knows But Me opens with Amra Pajalić learning, at age 16, that her mother’s illness is in fact bipolar disorder, and proceeds to build back to this moment. Through interlinked vignettes, she presents complex portraits of maternal grandmother Adevija, mother Fatima and her child self, and examines the fractured relationships between all three. The episodic structure compartmentalises key events, supporting Pajalić to juggle multiple perspectives effectively, while also providing much-needed emotional respite. As she pieces together her family’s past from their accounts – Adevija’s marriage is the result of blackmail and Fatima’s is arranged – the author experiences, and demonstrates, the power of storytelling.' (Introduction)
'Things Nobody Knows But Me opens with Amra Pajalić learning, at age 16, that her mother’s illness is in fact bipolar disorder, and proceeds to build back to this moment. Through interlinked vignettes, she presents complex portraits of maternal grandmother Adevija, mother Fatima and her child self, and examines the fractured relationships between all three. The episodic structure compartmentalises key events, supporting Pajalić to juggle multiple perspectives effectively, while also providing much-needed emotional respite. As she pieces together her family’s past from their accounts – Adevija’s marriage is the result of blackmail and Fatima’s is arranged – the author experiences, and demonstrates, the power of storytelling.' (Introduction)
'Amra Pajalić recounts her childhood exploits and relationships with no holds barred.'
