2024 Essays

A Story of Resilience and Sisterhood in Three Summers

Sabic-El-Rayess, Amra

In Three Summers, I travel back to a time before the Bosnian Genocide when I first began to understand what dehumanization is and how it manifests early in a child’s life. I move upstream in my life to narrate a story of five cousins, including an 11-year-old Amra, to show how our love for one another allowed us to become closer than sisters despite our differences. Three Summers takes place in 1980s Yugoslavia and warns us where hate can lead. To prevent hate, we must share and receive stories that humanize the dehumanized, those deemed lesser simply for who they are.