Isabel Fonseca describes the four years she spent with Gypsies from Albania to Poland, listening to their stories, deciphering their taboos, and befriending their matriarchs, activists, and child prostitutes. A masterful work of personal reportage, this volume is also a vibrant portrait of a mysterious people and an essential document of a disappearing culture. 50 photos.
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They travel endlessly and seem to appear almost everywhere, yet they are the world's most mysterious people: Gypsies. Isabel Fonseca has done the impossible, entering into their world, living and traveling with Gypsies during several long trips to Eastern Europe, and she has brought back an insightful, highly personal, and very readable account of who the Gypsies are and how they live. The Gypsies have a legendary aversion to "gadje," or outsiders, but Fonseca has lifted the curtain and written gracefully about their lives on the edge of society.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
An exploration of the frequently persecuted and misunderstood Gypsy population of eastern Europe.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
USUALLY ON MY journeys in Eastern Europe I traveled alone and made friends along the way. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
USUALLY ON MY journeys in Eastern Europe I traveled alone and made friends along the way. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By "kjb730"
Format:Paperback
...to give some definition to a mysterious ethnic group. Fonseca offers rich details of Gypsy life, culled from numerous visits with European Roma in the early 1990s. Her writing sometimes gets a little thick and scholarly, but it's worth muddling through, especially if this is a particular area of interest.
Format:Paperback
Are dying cultures an irrepressible phenomenon we should learn to accept, however grudgingly, or are we obligated to fight tooth and nail to revive and restore fading traditions, languages, rites and lore? What if this "dying out" is encouraged by the dominating and ethnocentric majorities who "host" such disappearing cultures? Where are the borders distinguishing multiculturalism from assimilation, or isolation from community?
Such prescient questions are threaded through Isabella Fonseca's fascinating journalistic exploration of Gypsy (or Roma) culture in Europe. Fonseca spent four years among various Gypsy neighbourhoods, villages and traveling caravans from Albania and Romania to Germany and France. Her graceful and spare prose flows without sentimentality between vivid detail of family life in the city slums, heartfelt insight into the beauty and dark realities of the culture, and devastating social analysis.
This is a wonderful read -- a thorough, realist, engaging insight into a very misunderstood people.
Such prescient questions are threaded through Isabella Fonseca's fascinating journalistic exploration of Gypsy (or Roma) culture in Europe. Fonseca spent four years among various Gypsy neighbourhoods, villages and traveling caravans from Albania and Romania to Germany and France. Her graceful and spare prose flows without sentimentality between vivid detail of family life in the city slums, heartfelt insight into the beauty and dark realities of the culture, and devastating social analysis.
This is a wonderful read -- a thorough, realist, engaging insight into a very misunderstood people.
Format:Paperback
Isabel Fonseca holds no punches when she writes about the gypsies. The author tells it like it is and makes no excuses for the lifestyle the gypsies choose to live with. The layout of the book is pretty good and the limited use of photos actaully enhances the book.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
written by a wealthy snob
Fonseca can sure write, but she should really stick to fiction, since most of this is just that. She puts in generalizations about gyspsies, not once thinking to maybe cite her... Read more
Published on Mar 7 2011 by Sam Reeve
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sladerous book
Reading this book I had a sensation that can be well described by the words of the author when she stumbled on a pair of bare-assed middle-aged man in Warsaw. Read more
Published on July 5 2004
3.0 out of 5 stars
Them Against the World
The present-day struggles of the Gypsies (or Roma, as they call themselves) are the main focus of this book, especially those of Eastern Europe. Read more
Published on July 3 2003 by doomsdayer520
4.0 out of 5 stars
Focuses on Gypsy plight more than history
Whether the author is unfairly blaming Eurpeans and their racism and excusing Gypsy failings, as suggested by another reviewer, is up to the reader to decide. Read more
Published on Jan 23 2003 by BP
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book!
This book is one of the best modern overviews of gypsies today, dealing with trials and troubles. The author deals with the situation of the Roma in post-Communist Eastern Europe... Read more
Published on Sep 2 2002 by Amber Hansford
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beyond stereotypes
This book opens with a chapter on the great Romany poet, Papusza (born as Bronislawa Wajs), which appeared earlier in The New Yorker. Read more
Published on Dec 23 2001 by Alyssa A. Lappen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bold, highly creative, brilliant, fascinating
Isabel Fonseca has endeavered on a fascinating task requiring mounds of research and spending hundreds of hours with Roma people. Read more
Published on July 12 2001 by S. Hindman
5.0 out of 5 stars
An uncommon view into a secret people
Isabel Fonseca does not write as an anthropologist; she has opinions, and is sometimes quite forthright about her negative feeling. Read more
Published on Feb 19 2001 by Joanna Daneman
4.0 out of 5 stars
Accurate Account of Gypsys' Plight
Ms Fonseca presents an accurate and believable picture of the Gypsy lifestyle and present day situation. Read more
Published on Feb 6 2001 by David Zelz
3.0 out of 5 stars
An important book, but readability suffers
I'm glad I read this book -- it is an often-fascinating portrait of a world I knew nothing about. Despite the biases noted by other reviewers, I think the author's exhaustive... Read more
Published on Oct 31 2000 by CJ
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