Forbidden Bread (new)

Johnson Debeljak's memoir functions as a love letter to her husband and an introduction to the Slovenian world, its language, social customs and tangled history (Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia, officially became a nation-state in 1991). ... The author offers an intriguing story about the birth of a new state as well as the “series of coincidences, mishaps, and thunderbolts” that led her from Brooklyn to Ljubljana.

Publishers Weekly, March 2009

 

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A caught-between-two-worlds memoir by an American who married a Slovenian and now lives in Ljubljana. After meeting her black-haired Slovenian poet at a party in Brooklyn in 1991, the author resolved to renounce her life as a financial analyst in New York, marry him and live in Slovenia, which had been a republic of Yugoslavia until after the Ten Day War with the Yugoslav army in 1991. Aleš Debeljak had just won a prestigious national poetry award and wanted to move back permanently to his newly independent country. When the author first told them about her decision, her family, friends and colleagues thought she was crazy, a sentiment driven mostly by their utter ignorance about the country. Ensconced in Ljubljana, the picturesque capital designed  by Jože Plecnik, Debeljak attended language school--her rendering of vernacular vocabulary is quite funny--occasionally went out at night with Aleš to one of the city's three bars, became thoroughly acquainted with the stultifying maze of bureaucracy and, when she became pregnant, was confronted with a slew of superstitious beliefs she was powerless to resist. However, she gradually came to love her husband's forest-filled homeland and its many fractured identities. Though the story is now dated more than 15 years, it serves as a touching record of the mores of a country that remains a strange, unknown land to most Western readers. Witty and warm.

Kirkus Reviews, January 19, 2009 

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In Forbidden Bread, Erica Johnson Debeljak takes us on a journey of love to, of all places, Slovenia. Her story is at once adventurous, romantic, and humorous. Debeljak’s inviting prose grabs us by the hand and leads us through the unlikely romance between a Balkan Casanova poet and a sophisticated New York City financier. Along the way are many eye-opening tours of a place that is both as enchanting and absurd as Peter Mayle’s Provence.

Amy Wallen, author of MoonPies and Movie Stars

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Out of a clash of cultures comes a book of wit and fascinating observations. American born and bred Erica Johnson Debeljak does not patronize the small Eastern European country where she lives now; on the contrary, her book says as much about the United States as it does about Slovenia. Informative and often funny, it opens a window onto a world of differences and similarities.

Slavenka Drakulić, author of How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

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“We all live in history, though most of the time we aren't that keenly aware of it," writes Erica Johnson Debeljak, a memoirist who is keenly aware of how her personal history traverses the history of her adopted country, Slovenia. With an observant eye and intelligent cultural insights, she leads the reader through her story of leaving New York to marry a black-haired Slavic poet. I learned much about the region that was once Yugoslavia and I learned it in the best possible way—through an engaging and well-told story. She is a delightful narrator and an entertaining guide.

Judith Barrington, author of Lifesaving