Slavenka Drakulic

Nor ziren? Zu eta ni bezalako jende arrunta, ala munstroak?. Zerk bultzatuta ekiten dio batek herrikideak akabatzeari? Zer eginen genuke guk egoera berean? Hannah Arendtek egin bezala, gaizkiaren hutsaltasuna aztergai du Slavenka Drakulicek Balkanetako terrorean aztarrika egitean. Guretik hain urrun igaro zen gerrak, 90eko hamarkadan Jugoslaviako Errepublika Sozialista zatitzen hasi eta hainbat urtez luzatu zenak, sarraski iragarri ezina ekarri zuen: berrehun mila bizitza inguru galdu, bi milioi lagun bizilekuz aldatu eta estatu berriak sortu ziren. Epaiketetako lekukotza zirraragarrien bidez eta hainbat iturritan oinarrituz, Drakulicek heriotza, bortxaketa, tortura eta beste hainbat krimenez akusatutakoei ahotsa eta gorputza jartzen die, argitasun asaldagarriz. Indarkeriari buruzko gogoetari bide emanez, liburu honek Jugoslavia zenaren desegiteaz harago egiten du oihartzun.

Con la curiosidad de un periodista y la sensibilidad de un narrador, nos muestra cómo gente ordinaria (instruida por libros de historia que exaltan la fe en la jerarquía dentro de la familia y la nación) es capaz de la mayor ignominia: la falta de piedad.

En 1992 o corazón dos balcáns estoupa de forma estrondosa. Case imperceptiblemente, o horror da guerra, da limpeza étnica e das violacións a centos de milleiros de mulleres ábrese paso entre a poboacion iugoslava, estremecendo a toda Europa. Slavenka Drakulic, nacida en Rijeka en 1942, escritora e xornalista residente en Zagreb (Croacia), relatanos en Coma se non existise como era o inferno daqueles dias. Cunha extraordinaria dureza, a autora presentanos a vida e a estadia dun grupo de mulleres nun campo de concentracion durante a guerra de Bosnia e as despiadadas atrocidades e violacions as que foron sometidas como derradeira fase da limpeza etnica. Coma se non existise e unha novela tan dura como reveladora e, precisamente por iso, terriblemente humana.

Slavenka Drakulic attended the Serbian war crimes trial in the Hague. This important book is about how ordinary people commit terrible crimes in wartime. With extraordinary story-telling skill Drakulic draws us in to this difficult subject. We cannot turn away from her subject matter because her writing is so engaging, lively and compelling. From the monstrous Slobodan Milosevich and his evil Lady Macbeth of a wife to humble Serb soldiers who claim they were ''just obeying orders'', Drakulic brilliantly enters the minds of the killers. There are also great stories of bravery and survival, both from those who helped Bosnians escape from the Serbs and from those who risked their lives to help them.

S. es bosnia y está en un hospital de Estocolmo, donde ha dado a luz a un niño. ¿Por qué sólo siente indiferencia y hasta se imagina sofocándolo con una almohada? Poco a poco va recuperando la memoria y recuerda aquel verano de 1992 en que los soldados serbios ocuparon su pueblo y comenzo su periplo por uno de los ultimos infiernos del siglo XX. La autora entrevisto a cientos de mujeres victimas de la guerra yugoslava para escribir este estremecedor testimonio del horror.

Tereza es una joven escritora polaca. José, un antropólogo brasileño interesado por el canibalismo. Ambos están solos en Nueva York. Se conocen y se aman, conscientes de que sus destinos no tardarán en separarse, cuando cada uno vuelva a su pais. Pero Tereza descubre que ya no es capaz de concebir su vida sin Jose y busca desesperadamente la manera de que sea suyo para siempre&

Tereza y Jose son dos extranjeros en Nueva York. Ella es una joven escritora polaca, y ha ido a estudiar literatura inglesa. Él, un antropólogo brasileño interesado en el canibalismo, prepara un trabajo sobre la experiencia de los jovenes que sobrevivieron a un accidente de aviacion en los Andes alimentandose con los cadaveres de sus compañeros. No tienen nada en comun, excepto, quiza, su diferencia. Estan solos en una ciudad y en una cultura que les es ajena, y hablan entre si en una lengua que no les pertenece. Y la extrañeza de este idioma prestado, en el que ninguno de los dos tiene un pasado, una historia, los lleva a desconfiar de todo lenguaje que no sea el del cuerpo, los ritos silenciosos de un amor que no ignoran es temporal, transitorio Jose tiene mujer y un hijo en Brasil, Tereza un amante en Polonia y al que se entregan con una pasion sin reservas, atrincherados en un pequeño apartamento. Pero el amor puede ser tambien un "hambre divina", insaciable, y muy pronto Tereza descubrira que jamas podria soportar la separacion, que para ella es impensable que la vida de ambos continue por caminos diferentes, mas alla de ese presente extatico, de ese goce absoluto que ya tiene los dias contados. Y su muda, desesperada obsesion, la llevara a encontrar la manera de que

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 Drakulics wry and humane observations lie in the emotional force of their honesty and the clarity of their insight.....

Slavenka Drakulic attended the Serbian war crimes trial in the Hague. This important book is about how ordinary people commit terrible crimes in wartime. With extraordinary story-telling skill Drakulic draws us in to this difficult subject. We cannot turn away from her subject matter because her writing is so engaging, lively and compelling. From the monstrous Slobodan Milosevich and his evil Lady Macbeth of a wife to humble Serb soldiers who claim they were just obeying orders, Drakulic brilliantly enters the minds of the killers. There are also great stories of bravery and survival, both from those who helped Bosnians escape from the Serbs and from those who risked their lives to help them.

"Drakulis composite portrait provides a clear-eyed look at European values, and what they really amount to." The New YorkerAn evocative and timely collection of essays that paints a portrait of Eastern Europe thirty years after the end of communism.An immigrant with a parrot in Stockholm, a photo of a girl in Lviv, a sculpture of Alexander the Great in Skopje, a memorial ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the Soviet led army invasion of Prague: these are a few glimpses of life in Eastern Europe today. Three decades after the Velvet Revolution, Slavenka Drakulic, the author of Cafe Europa and A Guided Tour of the Museum Of Communism, takes a look at what has changed and what has remained the same in the region in her daring new essay collection. Totalitarianism did not die overnight and democracy did not completely transform Eastern European societies. Looking closely at artefacts and day to day life, from the health insurance cards to national monuments, and popular films to cultural habits, alongside pieces of growing nationalism and Brexit, these pieces of political reportage dive into the reality of a Europe still deeply divided.

A beautifully imagined story of the last days of Frida Kahlo?s life A few days before Frida Kahlo?s death in 1954, she wrote in her diary, ?I hope the exit is joyful?and I hope never to return.? Diagnosed with polio at the age of six and plagued by illness and injury throughout her life, Kahlo?s chronic pain was a recurrent theme in her extraordinary art. In Frida?s Bed, Slavenka Drakulic explores the inner life of one of the world?s most influential female artists, skillfully weaving Frida?s memories into descriptions of her paintings, producing a meditation on the nature of chronic pain and creativity. With an intriguing subject whose unusual life continues to fascinate, this poignant imagining of Kahlo?s thoughts during her final hours by another daringly original and uncompromising creative talent will attract readers of literary fiction and art lovers alike.

A wry, cutting deconstruction of the Communist empire by one of Eastern Europes exceptional authors. Called "a perceptive and amusing social critic, with a wonderful eye for detail" by The Washington Post, Slavenka Drakulic-a native of Croatia-has emerged as one of the most popular and respected critics of Communism to come out of the former Eastern Bloc. In A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism, she offers a eight-part exploration of Communism by way of an unusual cast of narrators, each from a different country, who reflect on the fall of Communism. Together they constitute an Orwellian send-up of absurdities during the final years of European Communism that showcase this authors tremendous talent.

This is a story of hope and survival amidst the Balkan tragedy. S., a teacher in a Bosnian village, is 29 when war breaks out. One day a young Serbian soldier walks into her kitchen and tells her to pack her bag. She is taken to a concentration camp where there is a mysterious room. She soon finds out what its for - the Serbs systematically rape their prisoners there. After some months S. finds out she is pregnant. Shes devastated and resolves to have the baby aborted. However, when shes finally released its too late and she when shes evacuated to Sweden she gives birth to the child. S. changes her mind about giving it up for adoption: she realises that its not the childs fault that it was conceived in violence and that out of the act some good - this new life - can still come.

One autumn in New York, a young Polish poet, studying literature, and a Brazilian anthropologist researching a new book, meet, fall in love and move into a tiny apartment together. Tereza has a lover waiting for her in Poland, Jose a wife and child in Sao Paulo, and it would seem this could only be the most temporary of affairs. Yet there emerges the mesmerizingly explicit portrait of a relationship conducted at the extreme edge of sensuality, defying conventional definition. With no common language, exiled from their culture, for each of them the body of the other becomes everything: spirituality, sustenance, almost unbearable pleasure. Breathtakingly erotic, intensely physical, profoundly intelligent, THE TASTE OF A MAN pursues a path traced by a love based on pure appetite with shameless and unflinching candour, to its ecstatic and terrible conclusion.

Mileva Einstein no sólo fue el primer amor, la esposa y la madre de los hijos de Albert Einstein, sino también una de las primeras mujeres europeas en estudiar física. Como científica colaboró en los descubrimientos de su marido principalmente en el campo de las matematicas, donde sus conocimientos superaban a los de el. Con esta novela basada en hechos reales, Slavenka Drakulic traza el sobrecogedor retrato de una mujer que lucho contra sus carencias fisicas, que nunca se rindio, pero que no pudo tener una carrera brillante como matematica, aunque sin duda era un talento excepcional. Mileva Einstein, que llego a Suiza para estudiar ciencias desde el campo, que tenia apoyo entre los cientificos, renuncio a su carrera por su famoso marido y, mas tarde, por sus hijos. La novela sobre Mileva Einstein es una novela de dolor, de como afrontar las desgracias de la vida, como vivir y sobrevivir, como ser mujer y no perder la cordura. Mileva Einstein: Una teoria de la tristeza es una novela en la que la autora sumerge brillantemente al lector en la vida de la protagonista, para identificarnos con sus problemas, sus luchas, sus penas y alegrias.

La escritora croata Slavenka Drakulić asistió a los juicios celebrados en 2003 en el Tribunal Penal Internacional para la antigua Yugoslavia en La Haya y escuchó los testimonios de las personas acusa