Zoli: A Novel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.34 (527 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0812973984 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-05-24 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Her growing fame, however, betrays her when the Communist government appropriates her work for its project to assimilate the Roma. At her grandfather's urging, she also breaks a Romani taboo and learns to read and write. After the pro-Nazi Hlinkas drown the rest of her family, six-year-old Zoli Novotna escapes with her grandfather to join another camp of Roma, where she discovers a gift for singing. (Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Condemned by her own people and, as a Roma, alienated from the Slovaks, Zoli finds her way to a new home.
Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the traveling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as desire. A unique love story, a tale of loss, a parable of Europe, this haunting novel is an examination of intimacy and betrayal in a community rarely captured so vibrantly in contemporary literature. Cast out from her family, Zoli abandons her past to journey to the West, in a novel that spans the 20th century and travels the breadth of Europe.Colum McCann, acclaimed author of Dancer and This Side of Brightness, has created a sensuous novel about exile, belonging and survival, based loosely on the true story of the Romani poet Papsuza. But Zoli soon finds that when she falls she cannot fall halfway–neither in love nor in politics. Sharpened by the world of books, which is often frowned upon in the Romani tradition, Zoli becomes the poster girl for a brave new world. As 1930s fascism spreads over Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romani harpists. In the tradition of Steinbeck, Coetzee, and Ondaatje, McCann finds the art inherent in social and political history, while vividly depicting how far one gifted woman must journey to find where she belongs.From the Hardcover edition.. As she shapes the ancient songs to her times, she finds her gift embrace
Jacqueline Bodner said Five Stars. Excellent tale of the Roma of Europe!. A Powerful Story Beautifully Told Colum McCann takes literary chances with this story of a Gypsy poet set in the shifting borders and politics of Eastern Europe. For this, the reader is rewarded greatly. Few male writers have captured the female voice as strongly, as realistically as McCann has with Zoli N. A triumph of fiction writing: McCann should win the Nobel Prize Susan Swan What I have to say isn't small: I've had the same favorite author for thirty years. No more. Colum McCann is the most creative, complex, well-researched author writing today. He has supplanted every other writer for me -- and I teach writing. I think most of us have read n