Meh. I read this book because it is primarily set in Slovakia, and it was a drag. Its title character is a Romani singer, turned into a poet by Communist authorities after WWII, and based on a real-life poet named Papusza. (Zoli is about 20 years younger though, conveniently allowing her to be a sexy lover for the Englishman who narrates one of the middle sections of the book.) The book follows Zoli’s life in a disjointed and meandering way – switching points-of-view between sections and switchi...

Couldn't put this one down. Fascinating story of the Roma [gypsies] encapsulated through the story of a Roma woman, Zoli, with a gift for song and poetry. The story is very loosely based on that of Papusza, a famous Roma singer and poet. The story begins in 1930s Czechoslovakia where Zoli's family are drowned by the fascists' driving them onto ice, which then breaks beneath their weight. Zoli and her grandfather escape and find refuge with another kumpanija--musicians all. The horrible WWII year...

McCann's novel is loosely based on the life of Romani poet Papsuza (1910-1987), with the titular character Zoli as the Romani singer, turned poet, set in Slovakia, either side of World War II.McCann weaves a character with enough complexity and certainly enough interesting quirks. We jump around in time, there is a middle section of the book written in the view of Swann - an Englishman with a Slovakian father, who falls in love with Zoli. Then the Communists decide to use her as a postergirl for...

This book reeled me in. Such a talented writer. A young Roma/gypsy girl returns from a walk in the forest to find her parents had just been rounded up on the ice and…(won’t spoil). She is raised by her grandfather and is given more freedom than her cohorts: she learns to read and write which is not allowed.After her mother’s death, a lady brings her under her wing, stroking her hair and says, “Your mother was famous for many things, most of all she was a great singer.” She leaned down to my ear

A beautiful and harrowing novel by one of my favorite contemporary authors. It traces the life of a female gypsy poet from the horrors of World War II, to the stultifying world of Communist Eastern Europe, to a dramatic escape to the West. We see so much of European history through the lens of this incredibly articulate, sensitive soul, all told with McCann's densely descriptive narrative intensity. For a taste of the prose, here's the opening sentence: "He drives along the small streambed, and

What would possess a white Irish male writer to write a novel about a Romani woman from 1930s Czechoslovakia? Darned if I know, but this is a rich tale of Romani life, racism, literary awakening-cum-appropriation, and most of all human grit. Colum McCann did tons of research, but more importantly he has shaped his protagonist, Zoli, with trademark sensitivity and masterful prose.After her parents and several other members of their Romani caravan were murdered by the secret police in fascist Czec...

I loved this book. I started reading it on the airplane journey home from Vienna after a long weekend (and a previous novel by Josef Roth) immersed in the Hapsburg empire. It felt very appropriate. The book creates a rich atmosphere of the nomadic lifestyle of gypsies during and after World War II in the areas of what once was the Austro-Hungarian empire. The book also takes place in part during the transition years of communism in what is today Slovakia. I learned much about the Romani lifestyl...

Uh-oh. I’m about a hundred pages in, and the only character that did anything for me just bit it. I might come back to this (seeing as how I bought it), but for now I’m enacting the “life’s-too-short-to-forcefeed-yerself-a-book-ya-don’t-like” rule. I had high hopes, too, after “Let The Great World Spin”….

Zoli was a beautiful and riveting historical fiction novel by Colum McCann loosely inspired by the life of Papusza, the Polish poet who lived from 1910 to 1987 and the richness of her poetry as well as many other Roma poets. The story of Zoli is told from several different perspectives taking its literary tension from fictional characters woven into the fabric of history during the rise of fascism in central and eastern Europe spanning the twentieth century over the expanse of Europe from Bratis...

I was immediately drawn into this novel about a young Romani (Gypsy) girl who becomes famous for her poetry. Through Zoli's adventures, McCann provides an education on the culture and mistreatment of the Roma people as well as the politics of Slovakia before and after WWII. At times it moves slowly, especially in a section narrated by her comrade/lover Swann. But overall, an impressive novel.

The story of Zoli is at times harrowing even heartbreaking but above all this, she remains an incredible human being.Colum McCann has created a beautiful, quiet, intricate story that spans time, from 1930s Czechoslovakia to Paris in 2003. Zoli is a Romani, a gypsy and as such is persecuted and hated by the authorities from the Hlinka guards who sent her whole family to die on a frozen lake so the only person she had left was her much loved grandfather, the Nazis of WW2 who were rounding up the R...

This is the story of Zoli, a Romany woman of the 20th century. Hunted by the Fascists and Nazis, robbed of culture by the Communists and liberal European intellectuals, persecuted, despised, displaced, pitied, studied, Zoli’s story is the story of the Roma people. But, Zoli is also a gifted poet and singer who tries to exist in both worlds, Roma and European and can find a home in neither. The voice of Zoli is magnificently simple, broken yet full of dignity, intimate and unknowable. I loved thi...

a quote, to live by:wash your dress in running water. dry it on the southern side of a rock. let them have four guesses and make them all wrong. take a fistful of snow in the summer heat. cook haluski in hot sweet butter. drink cold milk to clean your insides. be careful when you wake: breathing lets them know how asleep you are. don't hang your coat from a hook in the door. ignore curfew. remember weather by the voice of the wheel. do not become the fool they need you to become. change your nam...

Colum McCann, a very gifted writer, must have sought out or stumbled upon the story of a Romani (Gypsy) woman who, against convention, learns to read and write and sings her own poems to wide acclaim. McCann turns this into a novel, good enough despite the feel that it came from library research; such is his talent.A book will be more than worth the effort, however, if the author: a) makes you think about or see a thing in a way you never saw it before; and b) says something so profound, clever

Colum McCann is a magician with words and while I didn't like Zoli as much as I liked Dancer and Let the Great World Spin, I still found myself mesmerized by Zoli and her world. The research that must have gone in to this for an Irishman to recreate the world of a Gypsy in eastern Europe during the middle part of the last century is incomprehensible to me. The book bogged down a bit somewhere in the middle, but the last quarter or so was so strong. I've got two more novels of his left to read be...

While I read this book I grappled with my lack of understanding. This is a book of historical fiction; I could not make up my mind if I wanted to learn the details about the life of Romani poet Papsuza (1910-1987), on which this book is loosely based, or whether I should just read the book for the delight of falling into the story. Only when I stopped trying to learn the factual details and let myself just plain enjoy the story did I enjoy the book. In the process I did learn very much about the...

In his acknowledgements, McCann writes that "We get our voices from the voices of others." This struck me because it's so much of what this compelling novel is about. Zoli is remarkable because of her voice, her stories of Gypsy culture and history. In the 1939s, when the novel begins, it's unheard of for a Gypsy woman to read, much less write and, only because of the tumultuous times she's living through is she celebrated for sharing her voice.But at what price?Similarly the rise of communism i...

McCann, a novelist so good that both Ireland and America claim him as their own, is the author most recently of Let the Great World Spin. Zoli is McCann’s sixth work of fiction and the one that immediately preceded Let the Great World Spin. What the two novels have in common, as does This Side of Brightness, McCann’s second novel, which are the three I’ve read so far, are an historical setting, a collage of narrative voices, a recurring theme of multi-cultural migrant peoples, and a strong sense...

What a daring idea...trace the life of a Roma poetess from early life under fascist rule in the dying democracy of Czechoslovakia to dying years in the utterly different but equally repressive "Free World" that doesn't like her unrepentant socialism...in her own voice.McCann's up to the task. It's a very well-built book, and Zoli (a boy's name in her culture, given by her grandfather to help protect her) is a fully realized person. She lives an exciting life. She writes amazing poetry (so we're