Once Upon a Yugoslavia

Starred review from November 15, 2015
This pensive, engrossing memoir limns the author's summer internship doing voice-overs and writing American captions for short, usually animated films for Zagreb Film studio in a Yugoslavia led by Tito and suffering the deprivations of the Cold War. Though Yugoslavia held itself apart from the USSR, and its citizens could, for example, attain passports and travel, there are secret police, shortages, and a generally slow-motion life astonishing and uncomfortable to Green, who doesn't speak the language or look the part (and who quickly hangs up her miniskirt for the duration). Clearly re-created from her writings at the time, the book's chapterseach beginning with a tough, thoughtful proposition the author faces, often concerning her own prejudices and felt limitationscover such topics as housing, food, morality, socialism, and communism. The author's sensitive, searching prose makes it feel as though readers are eavesdropping on her thoughts, making every page highly personal and captivating; we learn as Green learns. The slow pace of life in the Croatian capital forces Green to realize her feelings about American time (why U.S. citizens find or lose time), what in life is truly important, andmost interestingwhy she has felt blessed, perhaps led, from the time she was a child. An impressive portrait of a country in a tumultuous time but also of a young woman in an equally tumultuous time, eventually heading home with eyes open to the absolute need for equality for women, other races, and the poor and disadvantagedand for the procurement of her place, her work, in the world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)