After the revolutions of 1989, Isabel Fonseca lived and traveled with the Gypsies of Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia, the former Yugoslavia, Romainia, and Albania - listening to their stories and recording
their attempts to become something more than despised outsiders. In Bury Me Standing, alongside unforgettable
portraits of individuals - the poet, the politician, the child prostitute - are vivid insights into the wit, language,
wisdom, and taboos of the Roma. In a compelling narrative account of this large and landless minority, Fonseca
also traces their long-ago exodus out of India and their history of relentless persecution: enslaved by the princes
of medieval Romania; massacred by the Nazis in what the Roma call "the Devouring"; forcibly assimilated
by the communist regime; and, most recently, evicted from their settlements by nationalistic mobs in the new "democracies"
of the East, and under violent attack in the Western countries to which many have fled.
Isabel Fonseca describes the four years she spent with Gypsies from Albania to Poland, listening to their stories,
deciphering their taboos, and befriending their matriarchs, activists, and child prostitutes. A masterful work
of personal reportage, this volume is also a vibrant portrait of a mysterious people and an essential document
of a disappearing culture. 50 photos.