Native Land

by Nadja Tesich

A young woman born in Yugoslavia, but brought up in the U.S., visits the Old Country for a literary conference and discovers an identity which eluded her in America. By the author of Shadow Partisan.

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

Nadja Tesich taught film at Brooklyn College and French literature at Rutgers University. She is the author of the novels Shadow Partisan, Native Land and Far From Vietnam and the literary memoir To Die in Chicago. She is the writer and director of Film for my Son. As an actress she starred in Eric Rohmer’s Nadja à Paris.

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Nadja was a lifelong political activist, she lived her life outspoken and full of righteous rage at the enormous destruction of U.S. wars and the glaring injustice and inequality that surrounded her. She loved Cuba and often said it was the only place she felt she could breathe.

She had fought against U.S. wars in Vietnam, coups in Congo, Chile and Greece; she was active in the mass demonstrations against the Iraq War in 1991 and again in 2003.

Nadja was even more intense in defence of her homeland, Yugoslavia, from an unrelenting assault by the imperialist governments of Western Europe and the United States. Tragically for most of the peoples of the Balkans, these years ended with the imposed disintegration of a once-sovereign socialist country into a half-dozen mini-states, now neocolonies of the NATO powers.

Her life in in her own words:

“I was born in Serbia and have returned there every year, and I have also lived in France and in New York City most of my adult life. And most of my adult life, as a participant and as observer, I have opposed U.S. aggressions, murders, embargoes, wars. Some hidden, others less so.

Everything the U.S. does elsewhere — chaos and destabilization — it does equally at home. … It’s an amoral, mechanical monster whose heart is the beat of Wall Street. Up and down it goes. More and more it needs and it’s never enough. … Still it can be resisted. I remain optimistic. Machines break, after all.”

Reviews

[Danijela · Rating 4 out of 5]

~ Osećati se stvarnom, to je ono što je zaista želela, iako to tada nije znala, a nije ni bilo mnogo šanse za to - ona se trajno raspolutila na dva dela, na Anu i En, a njih dve se nisu slagale. ~

~ Kako bi bilo lepo živeti punim plućima, bez misli, kao ova žena. Ali za to je sad bilo prekasno. Moj pravi život je unutar mog uma, moje utočište i moj zatvor. ~

~ Žudela sam za tom jednom rečju koja bi me definisala, trajno me obeležila spolja, ta jednostavna reč, koje ne bih više mogla da se otarasim. ~

~ Sve je izgledalo beznadežno, svršeno, nestalo, i u danima koji su usledili, odustala sam od svake nade za njenim jedinstvom, kako je nekada bilo. Završilo se. Napjstilo me. I karta zemlje se negde u meni smanjila. Kad bih zatvorila oči, videla bih samo novu, nekako osakaćenu zemlju. San se zadržao kao svaki drugi san, kao glas moje bake, nešto što sam želela, sa ostalim željama u mom životu, kao što je savršeni poljubac, ili savršena ljubav, ili savršeni socijalizam, ali, sada je sve završeno, bez ikakvog napora s moje strane. ~

~ Pojavile su se prbe gradske kuće. Stići ću svakog trenutka. Čudno je, posle svega ovoga, nisam se osećala loše, ako išta, bila sam lakša, rasterećenija. Možda je ovo bilo ono što sam sve vreme tražila, kao ime za moje pleme - RASELJENI, PREMEŠTENI, LIŠENI DRŽAVE, IZMEŠTENI - bez svega ovoga, čak nedostaje i moje sopstveno lice. To sam bila ja, dislocirana osoba. ~

~ Zvono je nastavljalo da zvoni, bez prestanka, a onda su se pridružila i druga zvona, jedno po jedno, dok nije ostalo ništa osim te zvonjave, pojačane okolnim brdima, sve drugo je bilo izbrisano, stajali smo ujedinjeni, kao što smo bili ujedinjeni marširajući za mir, i ja takođe. Ne želim da mrzim, pomozite mi da volim, molila sam se klečeći sa svim tim tužnim ljudima, grudi prepunih osećanja, u potrebi za sopstvenim čudom. ~

[Donavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Home coming.