| Product Summary | | Format: Paperback | | ISBN: 9780140277722 | | Publisher: Penguin Books | | Publish Date: 2/1/1999 | | Buy.com Sku: 30422259 | | Item#: RR73V6 | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 79164 | | Dimensions (in Inches) 7.75H x 4.75L x 0.25T | | Pages: 213 |
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| | | Today in Eastern Europe the architectural work of revolution is complete: the old order has been replaced by various forms of free-market economy and de jure democracy. But as Slavenka Drakulic observes, "in everyday life, the revolution consists much more of the small things - of sounds, looks and images. In this brilliant work of political reportage filtered through her own experience, we see that Europe remains a divided continent. In the place of the fallen Berlin Wall, there is a chasm between East and West, consisting of the different way people continue to live and understand the world. Are these differences a communist legacy, or do they run even deeper? What divides us today? To say simply that it is the understanding of the past, or a different concept of time, is not enough. But a visitor to this part of the world will soon discover that the Eastern Europeans live in another time zone. They live in the twentieth century, but at the same time they inhabit a past full of myths and fairy tales, of blood and national belonging.
Annotation:
An examination of life in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. Past history, part travelogue, Drakulic's narrative ranges from Albania to Hungary, from the 1940s to the present day, as she moves across the ruined and hopeful landscape that was left behind after half-a-century of Marxist occupation.
| PraiseSpectator
"The wit and sharpness of her observations only reinforce Drakulic's assertion, expressed as she contemplates the kitsch of Ceausescu's daughter bathroom, that real democracy in Eastern Europe will be built on the ability and will of its people to wash their hands and use loo paper." - Joseph Altham October 1996Times Literary Supplement
"[A] lively cycle of personal essays and reportages....Her sketches are wry, sharp, close to the ground." - Timothy Garton Ash 11/29/1996 Kirkus
"General readers interested in understanding the gritty realities of post-Communist Eastern Europe should grab a coffee and sit down with 'Cafe Europa'." 12/15/1996 New York Times
"The book not only helps to illuminate the political and social problems facing much of eastern Europe, but also sheds much new light on the daily life of its residents, their emotional habits, fears and dreams." - Michiko Kakutani Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Literary journalism of the highest order." 02/16/1997 |
| Author Bio| Slavenka Drakulic | | Slavenka Drakulic lives in Zagreb and Vienna. |
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