Forbidden Bread: A Memoir-Fast Shipping

Description

“[A] sunny, can-do look at intense culture shock. Debeljak makesa humorous,self-effacing guide to her own story and the only complaint I have isthat I wish she’d told us more. I hope someday she gives us a sequel.”—ChristianScience Monitor • “Witty and warm.”—KirkusReviews


Forbidden Bread is an unusual love story that covers great territory, both geographicallyand emotionally. The author leaves behind a successful career as an American financialanalyst to pursue Ales Debeljak, a womanizing Slovenian poet who catches her attentionat a cocktail party. The story begins in New York City, but quickly migrates, alongwith the author, to Slovenia. As she struggles to forge an identity in her new home,Slovenia itself undergoes the transformation from a communist to a capitalist society.A complicated language, politically incorrect ethnic jokes, and old-fashioned sexismare just a few of the challenges Debeljak faces on her journey. Happily, she marriesher poet and comes to love her new husband’s family as well as the fast-disappearingrural traditions of this beautiful country. Set against the dramatic backdrop ofthe Slovenian Ten Day War and the much longer Yugoslav wars of succession, ForbiddenBread shows a worldly and courageous woman coming to grips with her new life andfamily situation in a rapidly changing European landscape.