The horrors of war
The terror of war is how the novel begins. A girl waking from pleasant dreams to a nightmarish reality. Her father taken and her house burned away in the night, Havaa must face the terror of warfare with the innocence of an 8-year-old.
History and truth
The novel has a way of asking, "What really happened?" Instead of showing the traitor as a traitor, the novelist draws attention to the torture that led the informant to give up the information that caused Kavaa's situation. The truth is far more bitter and unfair than what it seems on the surface, so much so that a historian literally burns his history of Chechen lands, because after all, history will say whatever it wants. The characters seem sure that the rest of the world will never care about their suffering.
Chaos and order
Instead of painting a moralistic picture, the novelist shows the real suffering of the victims of Russian oppression. The terrible, unspeakable chaos that Russia caused in Chechen lands is shown in full display, and the idea of order falls deep into the background—it's still there, but only in small images, like a medical textbook definition, or the backstory of a minor character. There is meaning and order in life, sure, but not for these victims.
