How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed

by Slavenka Drakulic Narrated by Lesa Lockford

Overview

This essay collection from renowned journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic, which quickly became a modern (and feminist) classic, draws back the Iron Curtain for a glimpse at the lives of Eastern European women under Communist regimes. Provocative, often witty, and always intensely personal, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed cracks open a paradoxical world that through its rejection of capitalism and commoditization ends up fetishizing both. Examining the relationship between material goods and expressions of happiness and individuality in a society where even bananas were an alien luxury, Drakulic hones in on the eradication of female identity, drawing on her own experiences as well as broader cultural observations. Enforced communal housing that allowed for little privacy, the banishment of many time-saving devices, and a focus on manual labor left no room for such bourgeois affectations as cosmetics or clothes, but Drakulic's remarkable exploration of the reality behind the rhetoric reveals that women still went to desperate lengths to feel “feminine.” How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed also chronicles the lingering consequences of such regimes. The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but Drakulic's power pieces testify that ideology cannot be dismantled so quickly; a lifetime lived in fear cannot be so easily forgotten.

Editorial Reviews

New York Times Book Review

A thoughtful, beautifully written collection of essays...blending provocative analysis with the texture of everyday life.

Library Journal

Drakulic's fine collection of essays draws strength from her keen powers of observation and sensitivity to her readers' interests. Her achievement is to depict the starkly common identity of everyday life in socialist Eastern Europe before its unlamented loss becomes irretrievable. It is a world in which party authority can create the ``sudden invisibility'' for an offending journalist, where public buildings share a ``shabbiness and color of sepia,'' and one that makes the post office an impenetrable ``institution of power.'' The essays are also about people, about the obsessive `` communist eye '' (italics original) disturbed by the injustice of New York's homeless yet neurotically envious of those wearing fur coats at home. The tragic irony lies in the book's title. Hoarding material objects enabled people ``to survive communism,'' but hoarding wartime memories and the inability to ``let the dead be dead'' may destroy the author's native Yugoslavia. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.-- Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ.-Erie

From the Publisher

She is a writer and journalist whose voice belongs to the world.” — Gloria Steinem

“A thoughtful, beautifully written collection of essays...blending provocative analysis with the texture of everyday life.” — New York Times Book Review

“An invaluable account of the cumulative weariness of the soul brought on by daily life in an Eastern European country.” — Vivian Gornick, critic and essayist (National Book Award finalist)

“Seldom has such a narrative been so spirited and immediate.” — Christopher Hitchens

“Not only the first ever grassroots feminist critique of communism, it’s one of our first glimpses into real peoples’ lives in pre–revolutionary Eastern Europe. My world is twice as large as it was before I read this book.… [Drakulic] is a brave, funny, wise and wonderfully gifted writer.” — New York Times bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich

Christopher Hitchens

Seldom has such a narrative been so spirited and immediate.

Gloria Steinem

She is a writer and journalist whose voice belongs to the world.

Vivian Gornick

An invaluable account of the cumulative weariness of the soul brought on by daily life in an Eastern European country.

New York Times bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich

Not only the first ever grassroots feminist critique of communism, it’s one of our first glimpses into real peoples’ lives in pre–revolutionary Eastern Europe. My world is twice as large as it was before I read this book.… [Drakulic] is a brave, funny, wise and wonderfully gifted writer.

New York Times-bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich

Not only the first ever grassroots feminist critique of communism, it’s one of our first glimpses into real peoples’ lives in pre–revolutionary Eastern Europe. My world is twice as large as it was before I read this book.… [Drakulic] is a brave, funny, wise and wonderfully gifted writer.

New York Times Book Review

A thoughtful, beautifully written collection of essays...blending provocative analysis with the texture of everyday life.

New York Times-bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich

Not only the first ever grassroots feminist critique of communism, it’s one of our first glimpses into real peoples’ lives in pre–revolutionary Eastern Europe. My world is twice as large as it was before I read this book.… [Drakulic] is a brave, funny, wise and wonderfully gifted writer.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172963872
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	658,924

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