Zoli (Paperback)

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Toby Clements, Telegraph
"Grim, poetic and beautifully observed" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review
"A great book and a marvellously crafted story. I loved the different angles, the images and the depiction of the Roma. This is life without being sentimental or defensive." (Roddy Doyle )

'If a writer's highest calling is to imagine what it is to be 'other', then Colum McCann is a giant amongst us - fearless, huge-hearted, a poet with every living breath' (Peter Carey )

'I review a great many Roma-themed manuscripts for publishers, but none has ever moved me as profoundly as the haunting story of Zoli. With its stark imagery it takes one deep into the heart of World War II Europe' (Ian Hancock Director of Romani Archives, Universtiy of Texas )

'Zoli is an assiduously crafted and beautifully haunting story of Europe from one of Ireland's very best novelists. Every book from Colum Mc Cann extends his range and excavates new territories. He is an audacious and wonderfully skilled writer' (Joseph O'Connor )

'McCann's strongest suit is his brilliant ability to recreate a remote world and era...a worthy addition to the growing literature of Roma life.' (Michael Arditti DAILY MAIL (8.9.06) )

'It is here that McCann's novel transcends its surface manifestation as an historical novel and reveals itself for what it is - an unblinking meditation on the significance, value and challenge of cultural diversity. It is a novel about now and here, about how we cope - or fail to cope - with the others or Others in our midst....McCann's novel is a rare feat ' (Gerry Dukes IRISH INDEPENDENT (9.9.06) )

'This is a haunting and lyrical story, well written and researched.' (TIMES (9.9.06) )

'This beautifully written, heartfelt book is both compelling and moving from start to finish; a true page-turner that is unafraid to face the darker sides of life while evoking the joys and kindnesses that surprise and sustain us all.' (WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY )

'McCann intelligently poses complicated questions about immigration and identity that are deeply relevant today. His prose is sharp and scintillatingly sensual, and the final moment in which Zolo finally rediscovers herself is incontrovertibly moving...[a] beautiful, thoughtful novel.' (Ed Wood INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (17.9.06) )

'McCann is as fine, and persuasive, a storyteller as any other working in English today...Much more could be said about the beauty and subtle judgement of this, McCann's finest novel, but what emerges most powerfully is a sense of compassion, even identification, with a people, who, because of the stories told about them, only need appear on a country road to inspire hatred and fear from their fellow man.' (John Burnside THE SCOTSMAN (16.9.06) )

'[a] parable of love, betrayal and loss on a European scale...In an epigram to his previous bestselling novel Dancer, McCann quotes William Maxwell, who that "in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw". But the force of McCann's language is so convincing that these "lies" are melded into a compelling parable that in the end brings hope as Zoli begins to sing again.' (Lucinda Byatt SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY (18.9.06) )

'Last March, Dublin-born McCann was inducted into the Hennessy Irish literary hall of fame - with his haunting, poetic work he has surely earned his place among the country's greats.' (METRO (Ireland, 30.8.06) )

'McCann has created possibly his most memorable character in Zoli, and brilliantly captured the physical and intellectual turmoil of those years in this superbly written and deeply affecting book. Moving backwards and forwards in time, it is perpetually challenging and conjures extraordinarily vivid images on almost every page. Zoli is a novel to get lost in.' (Dermot Bolger SUNDAY INDEPENDENT (24.9.06) )

'There is great warmth in the novel, sparked by the author's genuine sense of commitment to this woman in both her actual and fictional forms. The story of Zoli deserves to be told, and with his gift for unpicking the seams of history, McCann brings to the fore its sad keynotes of manipulation and betrayal.' (Eva Patten THE IRISH TIMES (23.9.06) )

'McCann has immersed himself in gypsy history and poetry, so that we get an extraordinary insight into the gypsy mind and philosophy of ZOLI...The book is graphic about the persecution of the Roma, but makes no attempt to sentimentalise them. McCann has produced a deeply moving book that will possibly change your view of the world.' (Alex Moffatt IRISH MAIL ***** )

'McCann tells his story from several different perspectives - a contemporary journalist, Swann, Stransky, and Zoli herself. With each voice McCann performs an astonishing feat of ventriloquism and mimicry, even creating one of Zoli's poems...His novel is a hymn to specificity, a clamour against homogenisation and...McCann doesn't fall for ersatz philosophising or elevate his gypsy characters into noble savages.' (Richard Eyre GUARDIAN (30.9.06) )

'a delicately crafted story...This extraordinary tale of gritty and poignant survival, told in multiple voices, is carried in McCann's crystalline, action-packed style.' (Michelene Wandor SUNDAY TIMES (8.10.06) )

'his prose is...beautiful...and characters are pinned with deft precision.' (Susan Elderkin SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (8.10.06) )

'a fascinating novel...McCann has created a brilliant heroine able to straddle opposing worlds: Slovakia under Stalin, and the freedom of Roma life...This is a densely impressionistic narrative and the writing is compulsive. Zoli rightly dominates, and her multi-layered character is gripping...ZOLI is an intriguing look at an unknown history and adds great wealth to the emerging literature of Romany culture in the 20th century.' (Julia Pascal INDEPENDENT (9.10.06) )

'Colum McCann is an artist, not just a story teller - a poet...A must read.' (IRISH WORLD (14.10.06) )

'[In ZOLI] McCann powerfully fictionalises the dramatic life of Slovakian Gypsy poet Papsuza.' (SAGA (November 2006) ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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2 Reviews 5 star:    (0) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   64 of 68 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars "Memory has a heavy backspin, yet it's impossible to land exactly where we took off", 7 Mar 2007 By  M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    This review is from: Zoli (Hardcover) "Things in life have no real beginning, though our stories about them always do," says Zoli Novotna as she recounts her days growing up as a Gypsy in Slovakia in the 1930's. When fascist brutes murder her family and her grandfather ends up bringing her up, author Colum McCann captures Zoli's sense of tradition and nomadic life as she travels with her clan in their ornate caravans all over the countryside, wearing the ritual of gold coins in their hair. Purposely keeping some of the older customs alive, with their modesty laws, whispered names, and their runic signs, the gypsies make a living for themselves across the land, every week a new place, existing almost entirely for music. Especially Zoli who finds consolation and pleasure in singing their songs that shift, and roll and change. Zoli seems to warm to her circumstances, her childhood indeed happy for the most part. Yet the gypsies had been suffering at the foot of the fascists, seen by them no more than wild animals, even by the Hlinkas who were just like the Gestapo. Zoli and her group try to settle as far away from them as much as possible and keep to themselves. Zoli grows older and becomes a woman and meets the Slovak poet, Martin Stransky, who takes her on as his muse and promotes her singing and also convinces her to write her songs down, she indeed becomes something of a superstar. Also paralleling her rise to stardom is the story of the young Stephen Swann who has come to Czechoslovakia, fired up by the thought of revolution as he works as a translator for Stransky. Zoli in the blossom of youth when she meets Swann, and the two begin an affair, both sustained by the sense they are "stepping back into what we all once believed: revolution, equality, and poetry." And Zoli becomes a shining example of this new literary proletariat, with their revolutionary right to reclaim the written word. It doesn't take long, however, for disillusionment to set in at the bleakness and inflexibility of the communist regime, with the country turning sour and losing its edge, "Our cures were so much less powerful than our wounds." Zoli's songs gradually become sad and declamatory, tales of bitterness and treachery, with the verses repeated over and over, "like the falling and layering of so many leaves." Alternating between Zoli's account of her escape to the West and Swann's journey of self-discovery, McCann charts the transformation of a nation and also of her itinerant people. It is impossible to imagine more frightening circumstances than those that Zoli must endure as she walks in the wet winter fields, cast off from everything, her heart broken by the people around her. With great insight, the author brings to the forefront the tragedy of the gypsies and the grand experiment of a government that wanted the best for the gypsies; the Law of 74, the Big Halt, "forty thousand people lumped into one in gigantic tower bocks with running water, electric switches, and heating..." Throughout the course of the story, Zoli learns that none of the old rules, the old taboos, apply although she always holds them dear to her heart. Hers is a fragile existence, as she leans how to survive by tapping into the life-spring that went down to the center of the earth, rising from the well of her childhood.Mike Leonard March 07. Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   4 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars The tale of a Gypsy, 2 Feb 2007 By  Philippe Horak (Zug, Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    This review is from: Zoli (Hardcover) Using the true story of the Gypsy poet Papusza, Colum McCann tells the story of Zoli Novotna, a Romani, a poet, a singer and a Communist. Her family was drowned by Facist guards and her grandfather was forced to flee and join a group of travelling musicians. After the Second World War she became a member of a group of Communist intellectuals, among them Stephen Swann, a young English journalist who is partly the narrator of the novel. Then the Czech Communist party decided to use Zoli - by then quite famous - as a symbol figure for resettlement and political propaganda. She tried to resist but soon realised that not even her poetical works could prevent a judgement which ultimately led her to misery. One wonders whether such a character is worth a novel of some 260 pages. However what makes the book worth reading is the fact that it is very well researched from a social and political point of view and readers interested in the history of Central Europe - Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria - from the 1930s till the Velvet Revolution in Prague will find it quite interesting. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 2 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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