Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey

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Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey

by Isabel Fonseca

3.92 · rating details · 1,210 ratings · 209 reviews

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.

Paperback, 322 pages

Published September 14th 2011 by Vintage (first published October 17th 1995)

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Jun 27, 2007

Tom Mayer rated it

Recommends it for: everyone interested in Gypsies or Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain

Finding my way to this after finishing Colum McCann's excellent new novel, ZOLI, I learned a great deal about Gypsy culture and the roots of ethnic persecution in Eastern Europe. Fonseca has a supple and engaging voice. She tells a personal story, remaining stoic despite the outrageously alien landscape she finds herself trying to navigate. More importantly, she has the anthropological and sociological chops to explore the issue on a more theoretical and intellectual level than your everyday jou...more

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Jul 25, 2009

Jennifer rated it

Shelves: nonfiction, sociology-anthropology, history-european

Before I read Bury Me Standing, I was devoted solely to fiction. My experience with non-fiction was limited to very dry histories that communicated NO sense of the people or circumstances involved. I don't know why I bought Bury Me Standing at the book shop of the Holocaust Museum in D.C., but I did, and it changed me in several regards.

First, I gained a much broader understanding of what the Holocaust meant and means. The Roma/Gypsy population was, percentage-wise, as or more signi...more

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Jul 09, 2008

Jake rated it

Shelves: anthropology, history, politics, history-european

This book was a great example of book design/ marketing at work. I came upon it wandering through Barnes and Noble (I think), and the cover just jumped out at me. Combined with a very catchy title, it was pretty hard to resist. It helped that I knew absolutely nothing about the subject matter, so there was some added interest there.

Bury Me Standing is a combination of an anthropological study and a history, weighted more heavily towards the former. The bulk of the text is a chronicle o...moreThis book was a great example of book design/ marketing at work. I came upon it wandering through Barnes and Noble (I think), and the cover just jumped out at me. Combined with a very catchy title, it was pretty hard to resist. It helped that I knew absolutely nothing about the subject matter, so there was some added interest there.

Bury Me Standing is a combination of an anthropological study and a history, weighted more heavily towards the former. The bulk of the text is a chronicle of Fonseca’s experiences traveling in Eastern Europe, where she lives and talks with Gypsies in Albania, Romania, Poland, and parts of Germany. She also attends an international conference of Gypsies[1] organized by some prominent Gypsy academics (not to be confused with academics specializing in Gypsies). Part of her investigations also take her into the bureaucracies of these countries, where she spends a fair amount of time speaking with government officials and law enforcement officers about the Gypsies, and how they are treated (usually badly).

Interspersed throughout the anthropological text is some material on the history of Gypsies. Unfortunately, the history of the Gypsies is a bit difficult to trace; the Gypsies themselves keep no written records, and many historical accounts are severely biased, where they exist at all. Still, Fonseca does a decent job of constructing at least a skeleton of the history of this nomadic people. And she does an excellent job of painting a picture of their modern culture.

Fonesca’s in-person observations of Gypsy life and culture are what make this book really worthwhile. It helps that she’s a good writer; her descriptions of the people, and their surroundings, are well-rendered, and help give the reader a good sense of the lives that many Gypsies lead (usually ones of abject poverty).

My only complaint about the book is that occasionally, Fonseca assumes knowledge that the reader may not have. For instances, she makes numerous references to British Travelers, who I presume are British Gypsies (and not British guys who help Wesley Crusher achieve godhood), but she never really explains what they are. In fact, while she makes mention of American Gypsies, British Travelers, and so on, she’s mostly focused on Gypsies in Eastern Europe. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but I would have loved to have gotten a more general picture.

Still, definitely a solid and enjoyable book. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, it’s worth looking into.(less)

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Aug 03, 2008

Sara W rated it

Shelves: i-own-these-books, non-fiction

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally finished this book. Each chapter could stand on its own which is why I kept jumping in and out of this book over the past months. It was pretty good. Some of the writing annoyed me at the beginning, but I can't remember specifically why since I read those chapters so long ago. I didn't expect the book to be focused so much on the author and her specific experiences with gypsies - I expected (and wanted) more about the history and current state of gypsie...more

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Jul 14, 2007

Erin rated it

Recommends it for: thinking people

really interesting book. you learn as much about the author as the subjects, which becomes more obvious in an ethnography about a marginalized group.

i picked up this book as a development economist, but the questions about the meanings of "identity," "history," "other" and "progress" are important in much more varied settings. persecution is traced through what can be discovered of a long past, but is most vivid in the descriptions of nazi ...more

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Aug 10, 2007

Ariel rated it

This was one successful random pickup at the library. I saw the cover and thought "I don't really know anything about gypsies" so I looked at the back and it had praise from Said, so I thought what the hell.

The author has this really interesting combination between personal narrative, somewhat like travel writing and an anthropological approach.

Most interesting to me was her analasis of Romani group memory, or lack there of, that she attributes to a survival s...more

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May 29, 2007

Andrea rated it

Although I learned a lot about gypsies (since I knew next to nothing) this book left a great deal to be desired. My book group wasn't happy that I chose this book for last month's book group discussion - we felt this author had an amazing topic to bring to an interested audience but just didn't deliver. We were impressed with her travels and that she lived with a gyspy family but her writing seemed torpid to us. I know several of my friends outside of my book group loved this book so it came ...more

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Oct 17, 2010

Nick D rated it

The Rom are in the news again and that is never good for them. (I cannot bring myself to use the word Gypsy, although Fonseca does). The latest European country to find them enough of a nuisance for deportation is France. The title of Fonseca's book comes from a Rom proverb: "Bury me standing because I have lived on my knees." Yet Fonseca's Rom are anything but kneeling. Although the caravans appear to be gone, victims of industrialization and modernization, much of it compulsory...moreThe Rom are in the news again and that is never good for them. (I cannot bring myself to use the word Gypsy, although Fonseca does). The latest European country to find them enough of a nuisance for deportation is France. The title of Fonseca's book comes from a Rom proverb: "Bury me standing because I have lived on my knees." Yet Fonseca's Rom are anything but kneeling. Although the caravans appear to be gone, victims of industrialization and modernization, much of it compulsory, most maintain a separate linguistic, cultural and economic identity. That identity, Fonseca argues, has its origins in the caste system of what is now northeastern India (which appears to be one of those areas of astonishing linguistic fertility -- another new language was announced there this month, October 2010). The economic pursuits of the Rom, trading (especially of horses and now cars), blacksmithing and music, are the same ones that their ancestors engaged in millenia ago. Much of the culture remains what it must have been, too, gold coins braided into hair, and the extensive code of cleanliness--much prejudice accrues to the Rom for the state of their dwellings, which is unimportant to them, but they spare nothing in washing clothing and avoiding all else that may be impure by their definition. Their eruption into Europe turns out to have not been entirely voluntary; the aristocracy of Eastern Europe, including Vlad Tepes, or Dracul, had a lively slave trade in Rom for centuries. In other areas or Europe, to be Rom was to be guilty, punishable even by death, most notably but not exclusively under the Nazis. Fonseca documents that period in great detail, and shows how both the Rom and those who enslaved them; it is a curious thing how the descendants of the slavers see themselves as the victims of Rom. Some of Fonseca's most powerful interviews are with the post-Communist officials (the book was originally published in 1995) who wink at attacks on the Rom, the police who abet those attacks. The collapse of the Soviet empire did not improve their lives materially, although nothing matches the Nazi persecution, with all the paraphernalia of the Holocaust: odd racial theories, mad doctors (including Mengele), ghettoes, work camps, extermination. And still they persist: Fonseca's books is full of the incredible diversity of a people so universally stereotyped: the advocates and intellectuals, the feuding "kings" (a title that the Rom don't confer), and, most vividly, the women: the matriarch of a family of Albanian Rom, a Bulgarian too independent for the constraints of her own culture, and the great singer and composer Papusza, put on trial and punished with ostracism for revealing too much to the "gadjo", the non-Rom. This is part of her lament for the passing of the days of the caravans: "The time of the wandering Gypsies/Has long passed. But I see them,/They are bright,/Strong and clear like water./You can hear it/Wandering/when it wishes to speak./But poor thing it has no speech..." The image is exquisite, but the Rom have survived even the loss of the road.(less)

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Sep 04, 2010

Dawn Allbee rated it

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in learning about different cultures

Shelves: non-fiction

My personal philosophy of late has been: Ignorance leads to Fear, which leads to Hate that often ends in violence and/or injustice. This philosophy is the drive behind my desire for cultural knowledge of all types.

Often when I read about Gypsies or hear about them it is in a negative context. Therefore, I got this book to learn more about their culture. Wow! It really was an eye opener! I read this book many years ago. However, I thought it important to post about this book co...more

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May 28, 2010

Stefani rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: exotic-travel, history-is-scary, semi-depressing, non-fiction, sociological

What a brilliant, engaging story about a little-known and, frankly, mostly persecuted group of people who seem to exist in people's minds solely in terms of their folkloric culture and penchant for thievery. Fonseca really gets underneath the protective covering insulating this incredibly reclusive and insular culture, who have remained virtually invisible, despite the formidable numbers of Gypsies existing within Europe. Tracing Gypsy culture to its origins in India, Fonseca details the innu...more

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Aug 29, 2009

Kate rated it

· review of another edition

At some point in life, you stop being surprised. I mean, you still occasionally act surprised -- but it's mostly just for fun, because you've heard it all before. And then you're sitting around sipping wine out on the deck, and you get the surprise of the century: your cool, liberal, multicultural friend passionately declares that "gypsy culture has no merit whatsoever, and if it got wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow it would be no loss to humanity." I almost passed out. An...moreAt some point in life, you stop being surprised. I mean, you still occasionally act surprised -- but it's mostly just for fun, because you've heard it all before. And then you're sitting around sipping wine out on the deck, and you get the surprise of the century: your cool, liberal, multicultural friend passionately declares that "gypsy culture has no merit whatsoever, and if it got wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow it would be no loss to humanity." I almost passed out. And so an otherwise forgettable summer night was punctuated as if by gunfire, and I was baptized in the font of pop gypsy ethnography.

This subject is so fascinating I can barely talk about it in complete sentences. It's like social studies on acid (which might explain why it's so popular now among the phD set... and why Fonseca is being sued by Armenian Roma for sloppy scholarship). The author blends heartbreaking anecdotes and character studies with history and trivia that ultimately make the gypsy story unfathomable to me. Fonseca gets at the complexity of gypsy life, which --it turns out-- matches the complexity of my own feelings about gypsy life. The contrasts go on for days (centuries?): their suffering and good humour, their simultaneous taking and being taken advantage of, their illiteracy and long-standing cultural habits, their strong women trapped inside a distorted patriarchy. And I am left with a million questions: how is Romania so morally bankrupt? why do gypsy women spend three hours cleaning mutton? why did Elie Weisel object to gypsies being included in Holocaust Museum? how does no one realize there are just 1 million more jews in the world than there are gypsies? and how do all the NGOs and IGOs and EUCs begin to improve the lives of these people who live in chaos, who reside outside of time, with no desire to fit in or to belong, who cannot organize themselves for change or resistance? And that's the thing about this book: even a careful and conscientious reader has to resort to stereotypes to begin to comprehend the problems and brainstorm solutions -- of which there are blessed few.(less)

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Aug 18, 2011

Joan rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: r5-group

This book is about the Rom (Gypsies) and includes research, personal interviews and observations of the author that were made over a period of ~1990 - 1995 when she travel extensively in eastern Europe. It includes references and suggestions for further reading as well as several photographs of some of the people that she interviewed.

The author makes that point in the book that the Rom are a particularly disadvantaged group of people in part because of various social characteristics...moreThis book is about the Rom (Gypsies) and includes research, personal interviews and observations of the author that were made over a period of ~1990 - 1995 when she travel extensively in eastern Europe. It includes references and suggestions for further reading as well as several photographs of some of the people that she interviewed.

The author makes that point in the book that the Rom are a particularly disadvantaged group of people in part because of various social characteristics. The children are poorly education, hampered by lack of fluency in the languages of the societies in which they live. They marry very young, before they can complete training for any occupation that will bring income into the family. They keep to themselves in whatever society they live in and so are not familiar with the rules of the society and are then isolated by others, particularly in difficult social and economic times. While they cling to family and tribal groups and do not mix with their neighbors, they do not reach out to other Rom communities in part because they do not have a common language and are essentially an illiterate society having few histories or shared documents. They probably form a significant minority or majority of any disadvantaged group in European society. They were slaves until late in the middle ages and are still easily disinfranchized by whatever country they were born in.

Reading this book, I was reminded again, how important it is that there are people in our society who seek out and tell the stories of others who cannot tell their own story. Journalism is an important profession and we are a better society if we can somehow support journalists seeking out the stories and facts of disadvantaged people. Isabel Fonseca must have made her family and friends crazy with worry when she spent several months in Albania sleeping on the couches of various Rom families. Even if they are bound by the laws of hospitality and are wonderfully kind to Fonseca, she didn't know them and seemed to be quite out of touch as she traveled (before the days of cell phones and easy access to internet). Fonseca is of Jewish ancestry and acknowledges the parallels of the persecution of both Jewish and Rom citizens. I found it interesting that the big difference of literacy wasn't pointed out. Much of Rom history is hard to recover because of their inability to write things down or to read about them as well as their carelessness with keeping narratives honest without trying to hide the facts. When they come into refugee camps for example, they destroy or throw away their passports. (to be fair, they have not always been fairly treated by officials associated with their countries of origins, so it may be a reasonable action.)

The descriptions of Rom households, very neat and tidy inside and very cluttered and unkept outside, was interesting and Fonseca provides some insight as to how this came to be. She also traces the likely history of the group originating in India with information about shared language and customs.

This book offers some interesting debates about self determination and our responsibility to the countries where we live. One would hope that effective governments would prevent one group of people from destroying the homes of another, but I also hope that citizens would assume the responsibility of making sure that their children are fluent in at least 1 national language and have completed enough education/training to be able to support themselves without relying on prolonged welfare or other social handouts. (less)

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Aug 18, 2010

Sara rated it

Shelves: early-modern-history, medieval-history, contemporary-non-fiction

Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey ought to be required reading for anyone who believes they know a thing or two about European history. As it turns out (speaking from personal experience), one might even possess an advanced degree in the subject and still need educating about the history of this intriguing European population. And this, to a large degree, is Isabel Fonseca's point - the Roma (or Gypsies), historically-speaking represent a practically invisible group of people, ev...moreBury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey ought to be required reading for anyone who believes they know a thing or two about European history. As it turns out (speaking from personal experience), one might even possess an advanced degree in the subject and still need educating about the history of this intriguing European population. And this, to a large degree, is Isabel Fonseca's point - the Roma (or Gypsies), historically-speaking represent a practically invisible group of people, even though they live in nearly every nation in Europe (with smaller populations in Africa, Asia and the United States). Since their arrival in Europe some 600 years ago, the Roma have been in turn exploited, marginalized, ignored and persecuted. The xenophobia and nationalism of various European regimes over time, as well as the Roma's tendency to shun both the written word and contact with outsiders (that is, with non-Roma or gadje), has rendered the history of the Roma little known, even to themselves. As Fonseca observes repeatedly, most Roma with whom she spoke only possessed historical knowledge going back three or four generations; that is, to the age of the oldest living member of their group.

This reliance on oral culture, even while living in the highly literate nations of Europe, is at once fascinating and frustrating. Obviously, it makes studying Roma history a profoundly difficult task. The Roma have, by and large, left no written record about themselves. The records that do exist were created by majority European populations who filled them with the kinds of misinformation, fear and hatred one might find in Nazi-era anti-Semitic propaganda. And Fonseca indeed points out the many similarities between the historical treatment of Jews and the Roma in Europe, although she is careful to delineate the independent path the history of the Roma has taken, including systematic and often state legislated persecution well into the 1990s. At any rate, Fonseca pieced together her history of the Roma people through careful study of the racist documents generated by individuals and governments alike for the last 600 years, but also through countless hours spent living with Roma families in numerous European countries, including Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Germany.

Fonseca spent, cumulatively, years in the early 1990s traveling in Europe, living with Roma families, scouring archives, witnessing the omnipresent prejudice against these people, and frequently getting the runaround from government officials. Through engaging and well-written prose, she assembles a complex, nuanced and ambivalent image of the Roma people. From their hazy and contested origins (most scholars point to India), through centuries of slavery, forced settlement, punitive legislation aimed at their way of life, and the resulting cycles of poverty and imprisonment, Fonseca traces the cultural outlook of a people who value the story for story's sake; who willfully spread misinformation about themselves as a means of protection; who are born capitalists, living in the moment, not saving but trusting in their ability to eke out a living tomorrow; who value family and cohesion above all; who, even when settled, live in a mental space more attuned with the nomadic ways of life of their ancestors. What emerges as the most shocking aspect of the Roma's history is how their systematic and governmentally-sanctioned persection continued into the last decade of the 20th Century...and no one seems to care.

Roma have been subject to the kind of oppression and violence that, historically, has been inflicted upon Native Americans (i.e., in several countries Roma children were forcibly removed from their families to be raised Christian), African Americans (i.e., Romania legally enslaved the Roma for centuries, and to this day in many counries Roma are sometimes lynched or their homes burned, while the authorities sit by and do nothing), and Jews (i.e., in addition to fairly common pogrom-like eruptions of violence against Roma in many European nations, over 500,000 Roma were murdered by the Nazi death machine during the Holocaust). Additionally, in hundreds of smaller ways, governments and majority populations in Europe continue to discriminate against the Roma, to relocate them, to hamper their ability to make a living at traditional Roma occupations, and to deny their cultural legitimacy, not to mention their civil rights, as a minority population. Ironically, one of the reasons all of this discrimination and suffering has gone so unnoticed (or been so disregarded) has to do with the Roma themselves. That the Roma culture has remained so largely oral, so dependent on living memory, has meant that the Roma of any one country neither know their own extensive history of persecution nor identify with (or even are aware of the existence of) Roma populations in other countries. To historians, ethnographers and linguists, the cultural unity of the Roma throughout Europe is clear, but most Roma do not know or particularly care about this. With some inchoate and recent exceptions, there has been no Roma civil rights movement, no united front. And so their suffering, their culture and their very existence remains unknown or ignored.

However, lest I paint Bury Me Standing as a bleaker work than it is, Isabel Fonseca observes throughout that despite the persecution and even because of it, Roma culture remains resilient, cohesive and vivid. It possesses a soulful, longsuffering aspect that offers a lesson in endurance and in embracing the now. It reminds us that adversity, too, is part of living.(less)

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Sep 16, 2011

Yichen rated it

Shelves: history, nonfic

In this, an account in person and history, at once simultaneous and ambivalent, Fonseca presents the paradox of Gypsies.

My personal reaction through the progression of the book has been polite interest, vague indignation, horror, and pitying despair, and finally slightly-more-informed-than-before indifference. The polite interest was piqued by charming and disarming descriptions of familial ties. The middle negative feelings akin to pity brought on by the presentation of Gypsies' lo...more

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Apr 21, 2011

Ruth rated it

Recommends it for: History buffs/Romani curious

A hard read for me but one loaded with historical facts and Information about a nation of people I knew very little. I had always heard of the gypsies and even been warned as a child to not talk to them because they were "just traveling through and couldn't be trusted". They were "just traveling through" in reality because no nation would claim them or really allow them to establish permanent homes and dwelling sites. The author, Isabel Fonseca did an amazing job of resea...more

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Jun 26, 2007

Jonathan rated it

i had run into gypsies for the first time when i was 21 and in Italy. People had just told me they were "beggars" and "street people." When i saw this book in a bookstore I was curious and read it. It was fascinating and very thought provoking. Intimate stories of individual people and their families as well as an intensive history of the "Roma" culture.

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Feb 27, 2011

Jasper rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This book is a remarkable personal account of life with the Gypsies of Eastern and Central Europe. The personal story is interspersed with astonishing historical accounts of the history of the Gypsies, a history that was never written down making this book even more important. Their story is one of perpetual persecution and a code of honour that has sustained them. I learned that the Romany language can be spoken and understood in Modern India! Proving it's Sanskrit roots and surely proving once...more

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Mar 10, 2011

Olduvai rated it

Shelves: 2011, non-fiction

Even after finishing this book, I’m not entirely sure why it is titled Bury Me Standing. I don’t recall a mention of this phrase in the book, nor about funerals. Maybe it was something I skipped over or misread? (If you know what the title refers to, please let me know.)

Isabel Fonseca (otherwise known as Martin Amis’ wife) opens this journey into the lives of Gypsies with the story of Papusza, who was the most famous Romany poet, but whose death in 1987 went unnoticed. Already this be...moreEven after finishing this book, I’m not entirely sure why it is titled Bury Me Standing. I don’t recall a mention of this phrase in the book, nor about funerals. Maybe it was something I skipped over or misread? (If you know what the title refers to, please let me know.)

Isabel Fonseca (otherwise known as Martin Amis’ wife) opens this journey into the lives of Gypsies with the story of Papusza, who was the most famous Romany poet, but whose death in 1987 went unnoticed. Already this beginning prepares the reader for a slightly different kind of non-fiction book. It’s not exactly scholarly, not entirely anthropological, neither is it really a travelogue. Perhaps it is best described as an exploration, a journey for both the writer and the reader into a culture that is often misunderstood, sometimes scorned and hated.

Fonseca spends a summer with Gypsies, a family called the Dukas, in Albania, where she observes daily life and their many superstitions and oddities (at least they are oddities to us). As a gadje (foreigner), Fonseca wasn’t allowed to wash herself. The boria (brides/daughters-in-law) have the task of scrubbing and washing her down (!). The boria do almost all the hard work at home – building fires, handwashing clothes (this in the 1990s). And there are some other horrifying things to learn, such as a woman who tells Fonseca that she has had 28 abortions, which she performed herself.

In Romania, she confronts a harsher topic – ethnic conflict. Romanians destroy Gypsy homes, trying to force them out of the towns and villages, sometimes even killing or maiming Gypsies. A villager, probably echoing most of the other villagers, calls them “vermin”.

Bury Me Standing is an interesting look into a people that is stereotyped, persecuted and barely understood (their origins can be traced to India but their history is still kind of foggy). But it is a rather depressing read. At the end of it all, one can’t help wondering: Will their lives ever improve? Do they hope for improvement in the first place? Or will they continue living in these rather shoddy houses, their children barely educated, still considered outcasts?(less)

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Oct 08, 2011

Orin rated it

Shelves: unfinished

Academic. Boring. Full of characters, yet having no character. My main fault with this book is that it was written by the author. Really really overwritten. That, and it appears to now be the most available general interest book on gypsies out there, which is regrettable.

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Jun 13, 2010

Melinda rated it

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in the roots of oppression and social injustice.

If you thought you knew enough about the Holocaust but you haven't read this book, you probably don't know enough about the Holocaust. If you thought democracy in the former Soviet Union could only mean a better life,that ghettos were gone, you need to read this book. Solid research entwines with the author's personal experiences among contemporary Gypsies in Europe for a fascinating, sobering, intriguing page-turner.

Fonseca's insights provoke the reader toward a deeper understandin...more

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Oct 13, 2008

Laura rated it

I just bought this book at a used bookstore- after reading it a long time ago. It's really neat- especially if you're an eastern european mutt ;)

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Nov 18, 2010

Britta rated it

Shelves: favorites

This book was AMAZING! Far and away the best academic book I've read about Gypsies so far. Fonseca takes us inside the home of Romani, into their past and into the future. Far from Romanticizing these people, she gives us the truth with all it's harsh beauty. Centered mostly around the Eastern European bloc, outsiders are given a rare glimpse into what it means to be Rom. I would love it if Fonseca followed up this book with a look into other Romani people around the world i.e. Spain, Russia, So...more

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Jul 12, 2008

Rachel rated it

A clear concise perspective on an otherwise unknowable people. The gypsies are demystified without losing any of their mythology.

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Dec 04, 2011

Jonfaith rated it

It is nearly eleven years since I read this astonishing portrait of a people. My friend Roger not only endorced the book but gave me his copy (I have since acquired my own) and I was riveted with its anecdotes and depositions; I recall that I was engrossed with such at the airport when I first met Lena, my best friend's wife. I related a story in the book where god created a book of laws and insights which would gurantee the success of the Roma. Unfortunately, God printed the text on cabbage le...more

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Dec 13, 2011

Natasa rated it

I have to say I am so glad I read this marvel of a book. Gave me the insight into the life that I was only watching from the outside, being from Eastern Europe. I still remember the shame that innocent question by my husband: "Did you ever had a Roma in your class in school?" brought on me. Well, no, actually only one, only for a year, and, oh, by the way, I was the only one in the class that went to her home, only once I was invited, I was 10; was my answer after a long, long, long pa...more

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Aug 11, 2011

Amélie rated it

Shelves: 2011, non-fiction, états-unis

Pas pour m'embarquer dans des généralisations auxquelles je crois pas complètement de toute façon, mais : quand j'étais en France cet hiver & ce printemps, j'ai été pas mal abasourdie de voir qu'il y avait beaucoup de gens autour de moi qui, sans être d'accord avec la forme qu'avait prise la toute nouvelle politique sarkozyste (inventons des adjectifs, tant qu'à y être) d'expulsion des Roms, n'en questionnaient pas tout à fait le fond. Comme quoi les Gitans c'est vrai que c'était tous des parasi...morePas pour m'embarquer dans des généralisations auxquelles je crois pas complètement de toute façon, mais : quand j'étais en France cet hiver & ce printemps, j'ai été pas mal abasourdie de voir qu'il y avait beaucoup de gens autour de moi qui, sans être d'accord avec la forme qu'avait prise la toute nouvelle politique sarkozyste (inventons des adjectifs, tant qu'à y être) d'expulsion des Roms, n'en questionnaient pas tout à fait le fond. Comme quoi les Gitans c'est vrai que c'était tous des parasites, & qu'en plus c'était sans espoir, ils étaient inéducables & mésadaptés & malhonnêtes, rien d'autre à faire que de les ignorer & d'espérer très fort qu'ils s'en aillent d'eux-mêmes. & c'est peut-être moi qui baigne trop dans le politiquement correct, mais ça m'avait assez profondément choqué. D'où ce livre, une fois rentrée à Québec. Pour trouver, je sais pas, quelque chose qui ressemblerait à une explication.

Enterrez-moi debout, contrairement à ce à quoi je m'attendais (c'est-à-dire : une chose aride qui embrasse le chronologique à pleine bouche), est un joyeux mélange de récit de voyage, d'observation anthropologique, d'essai historique, d'appel à la justice sociale & de cri du coeur. L'auteure & ses mots ont une personnalité très forte, très affirmée, ce qui donne une couleur particulière à tout ce qu'elle choisit de raconter ; ça en irritera peut-être certains, mais moi j'ai adoré. J'ai tellement aimé les premiers deux tiers du livre, en fait, que j'arrêtais pas de me répéter mentalement cinq étoiles cinq étoiles CINQ ÉTOILES! (comme quoi Goodreads & son estie de système pas de demi-étoiles s'est immiscé dans ma vie). & finalement on termine dans le rayon des quatre étoiles, parce que ça traîne un peu dans le dernier tiers, mais ça reste un ouvrage incroyablement intéressant, écrit avec chaleur, avec ardeur aussi, & sans une once de complaisance.

Mais de quoi ça parle, en gros? Des Roms, bien sûr. Mais des Roms comme de ce qu'ils sont, à la fois un peuple sans terre, uni par une culture commune & une histoire souvent oubliée, mais aussi un véritable ramassis de milliers de tribus différentes, qui préservent plus ou mois farouchement leur dialecte, leurs traditions, leur mode de vie. L'auteure, infatigable voyageuse doublée d'une détective sans peur & sans reproche, passe d'un foyer rom à un autre, habite un été chez des Gitans albanais, rencontre des activistes en Roumanie, aborde des réfugiés dans les gares de Pologne ou aux frontières de l'Allemagne, fouille dans de vieilles bibliothèques pour mieux parler des Roms esclaves du Moyen-Âge, accumule des histoires & des injustices pour ensuite les raconter du mieux qu'elle le peut, en donnant le plus souvent la parole à ceux qui l'ont aidée. & elle le fait avec conviction, avec une passion dévorante & une façon incisive, précise mais délicate, d'aller directement à l'essentiel du problème -- mais aussi avec beaucoup d'humour, là où ça s'y prête. Un passage truculent, quand elle habite chez une famille de Roms en Albanie :

"Le jour de mon arrivée, ils ont appris qu'à vingt-neuf ans je n'ai même pas un enfant, et la puri daj, mère de dix enfants, m'a tapoté le poignet avec compassion : de toute évidence, je suis stérile. Cela explique pourquoi je n'ai pas de mari non plus et, pire encore, pourquoi je suis condamnée à errer de par le monde, à aller en Albanie, rendez-vous compte, loin de ma famille et de mes amis, pour séjourner chez de parfaits inconnus. [...] Ma vie est une tragédie, ils le voient bien, mais ils sont pleins de compassion et me le font savoir : après tout, n'ont-ils pas jadis eux aussi été 'condamnés' à errer de par le monde? N'ont-ils pas été condamnés à l'Albanie?" (p. 72)

Gros bémol pour qui voudrait savoir ce qu'il en est des Roms aujourd'hui : le livre date un peu. On parle de l'époque de la guerre en ex-Yougoslavie, quelque part entre 1992 & 1995, & on finit par se demander ce qu'il s'est passé dans les quinze dernières années. Ce sera pour un autre livre, peut-être.(less)

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Jun 21, 2010

Jane rated it

"They travel endlessly and seem to appear almost everywhere, yet they are the world's most mysterious people: Gypsies. Isabel Fonseca has done the impossible, entering into their world, living and traveling with Gypsies during several long trips to Eastern Europe, and she has brought back an insightful, highly personal, and very readable account of who the Gypsies are and how they live. The Gypsies have a legendary aversion to "gadje," or outsiders, but Fonseca has lifted the curt...more

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Oct 02, 2010

Kelli Pearson rated it

I'm really enjoying reading this book and Zoli together. It is interesting to read a factual account of the gypsies, or Roma, side by side with a good fiction book of these same people. It makes me appreciate the details, most of which really are based on historical facts. Bury Me Standing, while mostly compelling and interesting, gets just a little slow from time to time, but then I switch to Zoli again. It's a great tag-team combination.

UPDATE: Have now finished Bury Me Standing, an...more

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Jan 05, 2009

Stop added it

Shelves: interviewees

Read the STOP SMILING interview with Bury Me Standing author Isabel Fonseca:

NEGATIVE CAPABILITIES

(This interview originally appeared in the STOP SMILING Expatriate Issue)

It’s 10 a.m. in Primrose Hill, London. Author Isabel Fonseca sits in her kitchen, “tanking up on coffee.” An American by birth and a New Yorker at heart, she remains in disbelief that she’s lived in England for over 25 years. “It’s payment for my sins,” she says. “Or maybe I just forgot to lea...more

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Jul 31, 2009

Linda rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Horrific, horrible, terrible. Perpetuates the WORST stereotypes of "gypsies" under the guise of spreading knowledge about the Roma minority. Lord save us from the friends of the colored people...

This - above - was my original review of this book. Later I received a comment on my review to which I responded. It's true that because of my utter distaste for the book, I'd been direct, but brief. In my answer to the comment, I elaborated further. Now, having seen so many posit...moreHorrific, horrible, terrible. Perpetuates the WORST stereotypes of "gypsies" under the guise of spreading knowledge about the Roma minority. Lord save us from the friends of the colored people...

This - above - was my original review of this book. Later I received a comment on my review to which I responded. It's true that because of my utter distaste for the book, I'd been direct, but brief. In my answer to the comment, I elaborated further. Now, having seen so many positive reviews of the book here, I felt that I ought to re-post my exchange with the commenter here, so more people may see a fuller explanation of my sentiments:

"Harley" commented:

I have a suspicion that you didn't read this book or you would realize that the author is trying to disprove stereotypes.

My response:

I most assuredly have read the book. Perhaps I was careless in my use of the word "sterotypes". What the author does is essentialize and exoticize "the Roma" in a way that is completely out of proportion to reality. And the worst part is that I have met countless people who will defend this book with their last breath, yet have not once in their life spent any time with someone who is actually of Romani background. As someone who had worked on Roma issues and has interacted with many Romani people from all socio-economic classes, I can also tell you that this is a book that makes pretty much everyone I know groan. Not to mention that the author is flat-out wrong on many of the generalizations that come out of her book -- Roma are not inherently "secretive", obsessed with cleanliness, or for that matter, nomadic (nor have they been so, by and large, for a couple hundred years). To be sure, Romani communities have their pathologies, just like any other community -- there are people of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities that beg, that steal, that are unemployed, that are homeless. The worst that can be said about the Roma in Europe (especially Central and Eastern Europe) is that for reasons of historical oppression, they are disproportionately poor and marginalized in every country they live in, and (as it does in every country around the world) poverty makes all those pathologies more acute. But, in my view, whatever the author's good intentions, this book does nothing to advance the cause of Roma, and much to set it back.

(less)

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About Isabel Fonseca

Fonseca studied on Columbia and Oxford.

Writes for many newspapers and magazines, The Independent, Vogue, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal.

For four years, she has been living with the Gypsies from Albany to Poland.

Currently lives in London with her husband Martin Amis and their two daughters.

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Bruno Fonseca: The Secret Life of Painting

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“On the whole, lying is a cheerful affair. Embellishments are intended to give pleasure. People long to tell you what they imagine you want to hear. They want to amuse you; they want to amuse themselves; they want to show you a good time. This is beyond hospitality. This is art.” — 6 people liked it

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