Miss Ex-Yugoslavia PDF Download

Author: Sofija Stefanovic
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501165763
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A “funny and tragic and beautiful in all the right places” (Jenny Lawson, #1 New York Times bestseller author of Furiously Happy) memoir about the immigrant experience and life as a perpetual fish-out-of-water, from the acclaimed Serbian-Australian storyteller. Sofija Stefanovic makes the first of many awkward entrances in 1982, when she is born in socialist Yugoslavia. The circumstances of her birth (a blackout, gasoline shortages, bickering parents) don’t exactly get her off to a running start. While around her, ethnic tensions are stoked by totalitarian leaders with violent agendas, Stefanovic’s early life is filled with Yugo rock, inadvisable crushes, and the quirky ups and downs of life in a socialist state. As the political situation grows more dire, the Stefanovics travel back and forth between faraway, peaceful Australia, where they can’t seem to fit in, and their turbulent homeland, which they can’t seem to shake. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia collapses into the bloodiest European conflict in recent history. Featuring warlords and beauty queens, tiger cubs and Baby-Sitters Clubs, Sofija Stefanovic’s memoir is a window to a complicated culture that she both cherishes and resents. Revealing war and immigration from the crucial viewpoint of women and children, Stefanovic chronicles her own coming-of-age, both as a woman and as an artist. Refreshingly candid, poignant, and illuminating, “Stefanovic’s story is as unique and wacky as it is important” (Esquire).

Author: Sofija Stefanovic
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 1760143626
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Sofija Stefanovic was born into a country destined to collapse. With Yugoslavia on the brink of war, her family was torn between the socialist existence they’d always known and the pull of stability on offer in the distant land of Australia. Surrounded by conflict and uncertainty, it’s no wonder that Sofija had so many questions as she grew up: which Disney movie would her life mirror? How did Yugo rock songs compare with the Tin Lids? And can you become the centre of attention when English is your second language? Sofija’s family spent her childhood moving back and forth between Australia and Yugoslavia, unable to settle in one home. The war that had been brewing started to rage, and the pain and madness it caused stretched all the way to Melbourne, where Sofija found herself part of a strange community of ex-Yugoslavians. Then, as the Yugoslav Wars moved towards their brutal conclusion, her family faced their own private and desperate battle. Suddenly the world was turned upside-down all over again. By turns moving, hilarious and beautifully candid, Miss Ex-Yugoslavia captures the experience of being a perpetual outsider – and learning, in the end, that perhaps you prefer it that way. It is a story about not quite connecting with your old country, while not quite being embraced by your new one. Featuring war lords and their pet tigers, baby-sitters clubs and immigrant beauty queens, this extraordinary memoir announces a bright and compelling new Australian voice. ‘Sofija has created a hilarious and deeply moving memoir about a place that no longer exists on a map, by rendering its people in their full technicolour glory.’ Alice Pung ‘Sofija can’t even wait to pop out of her mum to begin her funny and tender storytelling. We are lucky such a nosy character has spent her life ruminating over family, love and war.’ John Safran ‘This is a story we yearn to know: how does a girl lose her childhood, family and nation, yet nurture her memories, dreams and art? Stefanovic hits all her marks, and she keeps us in her thrall.’ Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist ‘Funny and tragic and beautiful in all the right places. I loved it.’ Jenny Lawson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy

Author: Sofija Stefanovic
Publisher: Atria Books
ISBN: 1501165755
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A “funny and tragic and beautiful in all the right places” (Jenny Lawson, #1 New York Times bestseller author of Furiously Happy) memoir about the immigrant experience and life as a perpetual fish-out-of-water, from the acclaimed Serbian-Australian storyteller. Sofija Stefanovic makes the first of many awkward entrances in 1982, when she is born in socialist Yugoslavia. The circumstances of her birth (a blackout, gasoline shortages, bickering parents) don’t exactly get her off to a running start. While around her, ethnic tensions are stoked by totalitarian leaders with violent agendas, Stefanovic’s early life is filled with Yugo rock, inadvisable crushes, and the quirky ups and downs of life in a socialist state. As the political situation grows more dire, the Stefanovics travel back and forth between faraway, peaceful Australia, where they can’t seem to fit in, and their turbulent homeland, which they can’t seem to shake. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia collapses into the bloodiest European conflict in recent history. Featuring warlords and beauty queens, tiger cubs and Baby-Sitters Clubs, Sofija Stefanovic’s memoir is a window to a complicated culture that she both cherishes and resents. Revealing war and immigration from the crucial viewpoint of women and children, Stefanovic chronicles her own coming-of-age, both as a woman and as an artist. Refreshingly candid, poignant, and illuminating, “Stefanovic’s story is as unique and wacky as it is important” (Esquire).

Author: Sofija Stefanovic
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063062062
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
A collection of 36 extraordinary stories originally told on stage, featuring work by writers, entertainers, thinkers, and community leaders. Spanning comedy and tragedy, Alien Nation brilliantly illuminates what it’s like to be an immigrant in America. America would not be America without its immigrants. This anthology, adapted from storytelling event “This Alien Nation,” captures firsthand the past and present of immigration in all its humor, pain, and weirdness. Contributors—some well-known, others regular (and fascinating) people—share moments from their lives, reminding us that immigration is not just a word dropped in the news (simplified to something you are “for” or “against”), but a world—rich with unique voices, perspectives, and experiences. Travel from the Central Park playground where “tattle-tales” among nannies inspire Christine Lewis’s activism to an Alexandrian garden half a century ago courtesy of writer André Aciman. Visit a refugee camp in Gaza as described by actress and comedian Maysoon Zayid, and follow Intersex activist Tatenda Ngwaru as she flees Zimbabwe with dreams of meeting Oprah. Witness efforts from comedian Aparna Nancherla's mother to make Aparna less shy, and Orange is the New Black's Laura Gómez makes an unlikely connection in a bed-and-breakfast. Compelling and inspirational, Alien Nation is a celebration of immigration and an exploration of culture shock, isolation and community, loneliness and hope, heartbreak and promise—it’s a poignant reminder of our shared humanity at a time we need it greatly, and a thoughtful, entertaining tribute to cultural diversity.

Author: Hinkler Books Pty, Limited
Publisher: Hinkler Book Distributors
ISBN: 9781741826760
Category : Amusements
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Discover a world of new and not so new things to learn and do. With all sorts of practical and interesting activities ranging from making a scooter and learning to juggle to building an electromagnet and extracting DNA in your own kitchen, there's never an excuse to be bored.

Author: Téa Obreht
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679604367
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.”—Entertainment Weekly Look for Téa Obreht’s second novel, Inland, now available. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times • Entertainment Weekly • The Christian Science Monitor • The Kansas City Star • Library Journal Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation. In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Economist • Vogue • Slate • Chicago Tribune • The Seattle Times • Dayton Daily News • Publishers Weekly • Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered “Stunning . . . a richly textured and searing novel.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “[Obreht] has a talent for subtle plotting that eludes most writers twice her age, and her descriptive powers suggest a kind of channeled genius. . . . No novel [this year] has been more satisfying.”—The Wall Street Journal “Filled with astonishing immediacy and presence, fleshed out with detail that seems firsthand, The Tiger’s Wife is all the more remarkable for being the product not of observation but of imagination.”—The New York Times Book Review “That The Tiger’s Wife never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic. . . . Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing.”—The Washington Post

Author: Ivana Bodrozic
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1644210495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
A thriller of the ex-Yugoslavia Wars. "Bodrozic, mediated by Ellen Elias-Bursac’s assured translation, chronicles what a country chooses to remember, and what it consciously forgets, with confidence and grace." —Sarah Weinman, New York Times Book Review The city of Vukovar, situated on Croatia's easternmost periphery, across the Danube River from Serbia, was the site of some of the worst violence in the wars that rocked ex-Yugoslavia in the early '90s. It is referred to only as "the city" throughout this taut political thriller from one of Europe's most celebrated young writers. In this city without a name, fences in schoolyards separate the children of Serbs from those of Croats, and city leaders still fight to free themselves from violent crimes they committed--or permitted--during the war a generation ago. Now, it is left to a new generation--the children, now grown up, to extricate themselves from this tragic place, innocents who are nonetheless connected in different ways to the crimes of the past. Nora is a journalist assigned to do a puff piece on the perpetrator of a crime of passion--a Croatian high school teacher who fell in love with one of her students, a Serb, and is now in prison for having murdered her husband. But Nora herself is the daughter of a man who was murdered years earlier under mysterious circumstances. And she wants, if not to avenge her father, at least to bring to justice whoever committed the crime. There's a hothouse intensity to this extraordinary noir page-turner because of how closely the author sets the novel within the historical record. This city is unnamed, the story is fictional, so it can show us what actually happened there.

Author: Robyn Carr
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 0778318850
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Look for Robyn's new book, The Best of Us, a story about family, second chances and choosing to live your best life--order your copy today Join Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Virgin River and Thunder Point series, as she explores the healing powers of rural Colorado in a brand-new story of fresh starts, budding relationships and one woman's journey to finding the happiness she's long been missing Between the urban bustle of Denver and the high-stress environment of a career in neurosurgery, Maggie Sullivan has hit a wall. When an emergency high-risk procedure results in the death of a teenager, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a lawsuit--and experiencing levels of anxiety she's never faced before. She knows she needs to slow down before she burns out completely, and the best place she can think to do that is Sullivan's Crossing. Named for Maggie's great-grandfather, the land and charming general store at the crossroads of the Colorado and the Continental Divide Trails have been passed down through the generations and now belong to Maggie's eccentric father, Sully. When she shows up unannounced, he welcomes her with open arms, and she relishes the opportunity to indulge in his simple way of life. But shortly after arriving, Maggie's world is rocked once again and she must take on more responsibility than she'd planned. Though she's relieved a quiet and serious-looking hiker, Cal Jones, is willing to lend a hand, Maggie is suspicious of this mysterious man's eagerness to help--until she finds out the true reason for his deliberate isolation. Though Cal and Maggie each struggle with loss and loneliness, the time they spend together gives Maggie hope for something brighter just on the horizon...if only they can learn to find peace and healing--and perhaps love--with each other.

Author: Richard Holbrooke
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0375753605
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
When President Clinton sent Richard Holbrooke to Bosnia as America's chief negotiator in late 1995, he took a gamble that would eventually redefine his presidency. But there was no saying then, at the height of the war, that Holbrooke's mission would succeed. The odds were strongly against it. As passionate as he was controversial, Holbrooke believed that the only way to bring peace to the Balkans was through a complex blend of American leadership, aggressive and creative diplomacy, and a willingness to use force, if necessary, in the cause for peace. This was not a universally popular view. Resistance was fierce within the United Nations and the chronically divided Contact Group, and in Washington, where many argued that the United States should not get more deeply involved. This book is Holbrooke's gripping inside account of his mission, of the decisive months when, belatedly and reluctantly but ultimately decisively, the United States reasserted its moral authority and leadership and ended Europe's worst war in over half a century. To End a War reveals many important new details of how America made this historic decision. What George F. Kennan has called Holbrooke's "heroic efforts" were shaped by the enormous tragedy with which the mission began, when three of his four team members were killed during their first attempt to reach Sarajevo. In Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Paris, Athens, and Ankara, and throughout the dramatic roller-coaster ride at Dayton, he tirelessly imposed, cajoled, and threatened in the quest to stop the killing and forge a peace agreement. Holbrooke's portraits of the key actors, from officials in the White House and the Élysée Palace to the leaders in the Balkans, are sharp and unforgiving. His explanation of how the United States was finally forced to intervene breaks important new ground, as does his discussion of the near disaster in the early period of the implementation of the Dayton agreement. To End a War is a brilliant portrayal of high-wire, high-stakes diplomacy in one of the toughest negotiations of modern times. A classic account of the uses and misuses of American power, its lessons go far beyond the boundaries of the Balkans and provide a powerful argument for continued American leadership in the modern world.

Author: R. M. Douglas
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300183763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.