A Country Called Brooklyn: Blood Feuds, Family Honor & My Sister's Murder

BLOOD FEUDS. FAMILY HONOR. AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.Hane was sixteen when her favorite sister, Jariyeh, was murdered—gunned down by her husband while ringing her mother’s buzzer.Her perfect world is shattered.Raised in a traditional Albanian immigrant family in 1970s Brooklyn, Hane grew up believing Albanians were the superior race, good women were submissive, and God determined her fate. She accepted arranged marriages, female silence, and that becoming a good Nuse—wife—was her highest calling.The family says drug dealers made him do it. The husband calls it an honor killing. And Hane’s brother sets out for revenge. Nothing makes sense, but good girls didn’t ask questions—they obeyed.Thirty years later, Hane finds the courage to do what no one else would: investigate her sister’s murder.What begins as a search for answers becomes a nearly two-decade quest through court transcripts, witness accounts, and the ancient Honor Codes of Lekë Dukagjini. What she uncovers is far more unsettling than she expected: domestic torture, blood feuds, prophetic dreams, a broken legal system, and the extreme lengths families took to avoid shame. Each family member carried a fragment of the story, but it was Hane who had to piece it together—even when doing so risked disgracing her family name.Blending true crime and family memoir, A Country Called Brooklyn is Hane’s determination to give voice to the sister who fought for freedom but was silenced—and, at last, stand up for herself.