Mother Tongue: A Saga of Three Generations of Balkan Women

What is your mother tongue? Sometimes the simplest questions take a book to answer.Such is the case with Tania Romanov's story of exile, emigration and immigration and how native language can be a powerful touchstone for the sense of home.

The unrelenting consequences of 100 years of Balkan wars force three generations of Croatian women - Katarina, Zora, and Tania - to flee their homelands multiple times.Family including Russian emigrants are driven out from Yugoslavia as refugees to live in a refugee camp in Italy, speaking Russian and the Serbo-Croatian language.Eventually, Tania, a successfully integrated American immigrant from Eastern Europe, journeys back to her fractured homeland with her mother to unravel the secrets of their shared past.