Chernobyl Strawberries

Vesna Goldsworthy

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Review

Born in Belgrade in 1961, Vesna Goldsworthy was brought up and educated in the twilight years of communist Yugoslavia.  In 1986 she married an Englishman whom she met when they were both foreign students at the University of Sofia (she was studying Byzantine prayers).  In England during the 1990s she worked as a reporter on Serbian affairs for the World Service, as well as writing ‘Inventing Ruritania’, a fascinating study of Western perceptions of the Balkans.  Then in 2001, soon after her son was born, she

was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.  Faced with the prospect of death, Goldsworthy wrote Chernobyl Strawberries as an attempt to make sense of her fragmented life.  It is a very remarkable memoir.  Far from being the grey wilderness of caricature communism, her Yugoslavia was a colorful place with surprising freedoms: she traveled a lot, learned several languages, read a great deal, edited magazines, wrote poetry and so forth...  She is obviously an exceptionally intelligent woman but her story cuts back and forth among anecdotes about her parents and grandparents so that her own experiences are embedded in her country’s recent troubled history; although conscious of her own abilities, she is not conceited.  As Yugoslavia disintegrates into civil wars, she is acutely conscious of loss, while never for an instant regretting the life she has made in England.  Her account is not linear, but flits back and forth according to themes and associations.  This approach comes across as clear-headed rather than muddled, a form of order wrestled from shifting identities and complex impressions.  Goldsworthy writes very well, is witty and self-aware.  She has written a moving, articulate account of her life so far, which is in itself a considerable achievement.  But she has also given us a rare and illuminating glimpse into pre- and post-1989 Balkans. - review by Johnny de Falbe