How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.

by Slavenka Drakulić

Book Overview

This description may be from another edition of this product. 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...

Customer Reviews

How we survived communism review

Book was in the condition that they described and came to me in a timely fashion.

powerful and beautifully-written

I will read this eye-opening book again and again. Historical accounts of communism can't paint the picture that this book has painted. This reads like poetry and is real.

Short stories about women's lives in Eastern bloc countries

Drakulic is a journalist by trade, and as such has a no-nonsense writing style: stark, factual. She interviewed women of various countries and captured stories of what they endured mentally and physically under communist rule. This is one of my favorite books, one I will read again and again, and which I have given copies of to my friends.

A life-changing experience

I was assigned this book in a second-year women's history class when I was an undergraduate...thanks, professor Whitney! Drakulic's attention to the impact of big events on small things, like toilet paper, makeup, and pizza, makes for a startlingly up-close examination of life in post-communist eastern Europe. Ever since that history class, this book has been a touchstone for me. I've passed it along to friends and to both of my parents. It insists that you rethink your ideas about what's "good" and "bad" for feminism, and focuses your attention on the connection between the political, the material, and femininity. Fascinating, wonderfully written, a must-read. I've learned my lesson about lending out my copy...my best friend moved to Texas and took it with her. Of course I must buy another...I just can't be without this book.

Amazingly Perceptive

Slavenka Drakulic's writings are to be savored. Read her collections of essays in chronological order. She is amazingly perceptive and her ideas evolve with every new year of experience.