Cousins

Set on the Greek-Yugoslav border during World War I, this short novel traces the final leg of a return journey home by two naive country cousins, Srbin and Shishman. The young men have avoided the fighting by following the Macedonian tradition of leaving their village to seek employment to the north in Romania. As they try to get back to the fictional village of Breznitsa, they find their way blocked by a battlefield, with the Serbs and the French on one side, the Germans and Bulgarians on the other. In order to cross the trenches, they enlist in the Balkan army, then surrender to the French at the first opportunity. A series of trials and adventures await them, and just when salvation seems at hand, one more obstacle arises that could undo all their previous efforts. Jovanovski, president of the Macedonian PEN in Yugoslavia, has written a deceptively simple, easily read tale of two men seeking to retain their past and ""native innocence,'' when all about them have lost both through the brutality of war. (January 26)