Product Description

"Europe is still a divided continent. In the place of a fallen Berlin wall, there is a chasm between the East and the West. 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 we, the Eastern Europeans, live in another time zone. We live in the twentieth century, but at the same time we inhabit a past full of myths and fairy tales, of blood and national belonging, and the fact that most people are lying and cheating or that they have the habit of blaming others for every failure..." An intimate tour of life on the streets of Budapest, Tirana, Warsaw and Zagreb, as those cities continue to acclimatise to the post-Communist thaw, Cafe Europa does not provide easy solutions or furnish political pallatives. Rather as a Croatian with a viewpoint of ever-widening relevance, the value of Slavenka Drakulic's wry and humane observations lie in the emotional force of their honesty and the clarity of their insight...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118612 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'Slavenka Drakulic is a writer of great sensitivity, intelligence and grace.' ALICE WALKER 'A formidable writer.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Her writing has the spare poetry of Marguerite Duras.' GUARDIAN 'Slavenka Drakulic is a journalist and writer whose voice belongs to the world.' GLORIA STEINEM

About the Author
Slavenka Drakulic was born in Croatia in 1949, is a writer and journalist whose two novels and three non-fiction books have been translated into major European languages. She contributes to The New Republic, La Stampa, Dagens Nyheter, Frankfurter Runschau and the Observer.

Customer Reviews

Insight tempered by frustration
Drakulic writes with a scientific precision: she subjects the trivial elements of daily life to an analytical intelligence to make them reveal the essence of life in post-communist Eastern and Central Europe. Her anger is palpable but her dry wit never allows the work to become a 'rant,' and her ideas are persuasive without being bludgeoning. The only essay I disagreed with was her assertion that the disparity between the state of Americans' teeth and those of Eastern Europeans was a consequence of lack of self-esteem left over from communism. I'd thought it was a consequence of American neurosis!

an valuable insight...
I would wholeheartedly recommend Draculic's book to anyone who wonders what has happened to Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of Communism almost fifteen years ago. The author writes lucidly about her own experiences of life under a communist regime, and her thoughts on the development of former Communist countries since 1989/90. Having studied History at university, I felt that perhaps the appeal of the book might be limited to like-minded people, but every friend that I have recommended it to has found it interesting and enjoyable. I read it whilst travelling through Central Europe, and it made me realise that whilst cities such as Prague, Budapest and Warsaw may now have the outward trappings of Western capitalism, this does not reflect the situation below the surface, in the attitudes of citizens, and their memories of the very recent past.

re: Cafe Europa
Astonishing book! Will keep you reading long after bedtime! For the people from former Yugoslavia is perfectly understandable, also for anyone who is from Balkan, or even been there once, or willing to know tremendous charm. They can find themselfs somewhere in the pages! Autor has a great knowledge and a rare compassion, she can wrap plattitude in nice worlds, and make you laugh.