“Nermina’s Chance” by Dina Greenberg Promoted at IUS

ELIT and CULT study programs organized a book promotion of “Nermina’s Chance”, a novel by an American author, Ms. Dina Greenberg. The event, moderated by Asst. Prof. Dr. Nadira Puškar-Mustafić, was held at the IUS Library on September 5, 2022.

Ms. Dina Greenberg is an accomplished author nominated for numerous awards. Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared widely in a great number of journals. She teaches creative writing at the Cameron Art Museum and provides one-on-one writing coaching for trauma victims. Mrs. Greenberg is an exceptional writer because she is more than someone who writes beautiful prose. She is a humanitarian, a truth seeker, and a voice giver, which is her most significant accomplishment. Her creative writing workshops for combat veterans resulted in her writing “Nermina’s Chance”, her debut novel. 

“Nermina’s Chance” vividly portraits how suddenly, quickly and unexpectedly life can change. Telling the story of a survivor who escapes war and starts a new life in a completely different place with completely new people, this novel explores many themes including collective and intergenerational trauma, forgiveness, and guilt.

When asked why Bosnia and why writing about a Bosnian woman who survived the war, she replied that all tragedies, especially war ones, break her heart. As a Jew who inherited Holocaust as a transgenerational trauma, Ms. Dina Greenberg could not believe that, once again, the world stood by and watched how another Holocaust was being executed on the European soil. People were killed, women were raped, and families were destroyed just for being Muslims. Ms. Greenberg recognized that in Bosnian trauma lies a seed of every trauma of people who are "othered" in any way, simply for not fitting into a box.

At the end of the event, the attendees had an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about her writing process and the reasons why she decided to write this novel.