Zoli's cities, areas. Zilina, Poprad, Presov, Martin, Spisska Nova Ves

Spis Castle, Slovakia

The Book
"Zoli"

Touring with her poetry, and singing.

Zoli at p. 118.

Get an idea of the parallel cultures in Slovakia - The Gypsies, some settled in their own shanty towns at the time, some traveling in caravans. Now see the other culture - the castle, the middle ages, the commercialism, the life that they kept themselves apart from.

Photos from the Zilina area, mountainous, with valleys good for caravans, following rivers. Castles on the ridges.

Here is the huge 13th Century Spis Castle, near the town of Spisska Nova Ves, on a great plain. See ://www.tanap.sk/spiscastle.html. This castle enabled the area to hold off the Tartars, at least for a while. Read about the Tartars, also known as Tatars, from the Russian perspective at the time, at //www.logoi.com/notes/russia/tartar_invasion.



We spent time at Bojnice Castle, not far from the Zilina-Presov area, because it had a ghost festival going on at the time, an annual event complete with a narrative-drama tour of the castle, and a street fair with fabulous food - see Slovakia Road Ways, Bojnice Castle.

Reviews of "Zoli" - Summaries of the Plot, Comments

The novel, "Zoli," by Colum McCann, is roughly based on the life of Gypsy poet Branislawa Wajs. She was a member of a traveling group of Gypsies in Poland, who achieved literacy. Her poems and songs then were published, and then used against her and the Gypsies as a whole by government policy-makers, who wanted to stop and force the settlement of nomadic groups. The argument was that "these people" -would benefit from release from the primitivism of the caravans. In fact, those policies in most cases took away the livelihood of the itinerant musicians, basket-makers, metal workers and others across Europe as the Halt trend spread, reducing the groups to dependency in crowded high-rises.

Read any of these for the plot outline, the political contexts including Fascism and Communism in Slovakia, WWII and holocaust Slovakia and Poland, post-Communist era, and the Romani people, the character Zoli, inspired by the real "Papusza," in particular.

1. Seattle Times - //seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2003509350_zoli07.html

2. Montreal Gazette ://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/books/story.html?id=48e838be-e37d-4d98-a756-79b3d100508d