The publication Breaking Out brings at the center the story of Martin Çuni and Muhamer Shabani, two former political prisoners of Yugoslavia. The initial stage of the publication was conducting oral history interviews. From Martin Çuni we have learned about his attempt to break out from the Detention Center in Pristina, otherwise known as the Pristina Prison. This story brought us in touch with Muhamer Shabani. Both of them have worked for months on end to create a path that led out of the prison. In the absence of textual and visual sources, we considered that the shared experience of Çuni and Shabani should be conveyed through a publication that rests on their experiences and recollections. In collaboration with them, the interviews have been reworked into first-person narratives. The story of the breaking out not only brings forward two perspectives of the same event, but also has two very different endings: Çuni was captured, while Shabani broke out.
Edited by Erëmirë Krasniqi
Assistant Editor: Anita Susuri
Researched by Anita Susuri and Renea Begolli
132 pages, 16 black & white photography
Softcover 10,5 x 18 cm
Single edition in English and Albanian language
Published by the Oral History Initiative
© 2023
The publication was supported by National Endowment for Democracy and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.