Croatian publishing house VBZ has published Drakulic’s book How we survived communism and even lauhged as a part of the new project Croatian Writers in Translation. Drakulic’s collection of essays Balkan express was already included in the series last year.
If How We Survived Communism were simply the first feminist report on women’s lives in Eastern Europe, it would be essential reading in every women’s studies program. The beauty and precision of Drakulić’s writing make it much more than that: we can feel these lives, walk into their rooms, smell their soup. We can get under the skin of her fear as war enters her city. Never underestimate the need for such particular knowledge, our need to grasp the ambiguity, hesitation, and conflict at the roots of theory. Women’s Review of Books
Perhaps the greatest appeal of How We Survived Communism lies in Ms. Drakulić’s skill at blending provocative analysis with the texture of everyday life: a young girl’s awe before a luxurious foreign doll; an Eastern European’s envious amazement at the workings of the American phone system and painful bewilderment at the vast poverty in New York… A thoughtful, beautifully written collection. New York Times Bok Review
Slavenka Drakulić has been called the Simone de Beauvoir
of Eastern Europe, and this book is a testament to why. Robin Morgan
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