Love me more than anything in the world: Stories about belonging

by Mira Furlan

The memoir LOVE ME MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE Stories about belonging by the late Mira Furlan, the Yugoslav-born star of Babylon 5 and Lost, has been published for the first time in English. Already one of the bestselling books in 2022 in Croatia and Serbia, the autobiographical work tells the story of Furlan’s remarkable life and creatively acclaimed career—along with the poignant and terrifying account of how her principled stand against the ethnic carnage that tore Yugoslavia apart in 1991 led her to leave the country with her husband, the director Goran Gajic.


Before leaving, Furlan wrote “A letter to my co-citizens,” considered by many to be one of the most powerful anti-war essays of the last century and a historic document of the situation of an artist in a war. It was published in the newspapers on both warring sides of the conflict.


In that piece, Furlan wrote, “I know and I feel that it is my duty, the duty of our profession, to build bridges. To never give up on cooperation and community. Not the national community. The professional community. The human community. And even when things are at their very worst, as they are now, we must insist to our last breath on building and sustaining bonds between people. This is how we pledge to the future. And one day it will come.”


A fierce media campaign against her continued, leading to her being fired by the Croatian National Theatre. Her main “sin” was starring at the Belgrade International Theater Festival, where the antiwar production of “Theatrical Illusions” (Corneille) was chosen to be in the main competition of the festival. (She had been performing the play for a year prior to the outbreak of the war.)


Furlan begins her book with the history of her family in Yugoslavia, a country that no longer exists. Part Jewish, part Croatian, Furlan grew up never feeling the strong pull of ethnic nationalism that lurked beneath the surface of the communist society. Born in 1955 in Zagreb and recognized early on for her extraordinary talent, Furlan achieved fame as a star of film, TV, and the stage across all of Yugoslavia by the late seventies.


Furlan and Gajic emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City and starting a hard immigrant life. After a rough adjustment, Furlan was cast in Babylon 5, the cult science fiction television series. She later appeared in Lost and many other television shows and stage productions in Los Angeles.


Furlan explains that she conceived the book as a letter to her son, saying, “He is the one to whom I want to tell this the story of his parents and their tortured country, the story of a life that had been torn apart by uncontrollable forces, the story of a continual search for identity, purpose and direction in difficult circumstances, the story of emigrating to a foreign place, of lives being torn into pieces, of fragile nature of friendship and love, of heartbreaking losses, of new beginnings, of expectations and disappointments, of America through a lens of a foreigner, of a woman’s experience in the acting profession practiced on two continents, of the fleeting nature of fame.”



She then remarks, “And while I’ve been trying to answer these unanswerable questions, toiling over words in a language that is not mine (although I audaciously pretend it is), something very strange has you have grown up. Not only America has become a different country, a country ominously similar to the place we once left in horror and despair. There is no doubt anymore that the forces that chased us out of our own homes have won a global victory. We fought those forces once. Now we feel tired. We are exhausted by repetition.

Genres: Autobiography, Memoir, Nonfiction, History

703 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 29, 2023

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but a thoughtful, thought-provoking one that lingers.

[Bojana · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most special books I've ever read and probably will ever read. I highly recommend it.

Hvala Mira. Takođe hvala i vama Gorane - koji ste našli način da knjigu objavite.

[April Helms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mira Furlan, who died way too young in 2021, is probably best known (at least in the United States) for playing Minbari ambassador Delenn of Mir in the 90s television series Babylon 5. Babylon 5 is my favorite series of all time, and Delenn is my favorite character in the show (and one of my all-time favorite fictional characters, period). Furlan penned this autobiography, ending it a few years before she died, and it was published posthumously about a year after her passing.

Anyone who is a fan of the sci-fi series or anyone who likes a fantastic autobiography will enjoy this. Furlan is no holds barred, brutally honest about her homeland, her adopted home of the United States, her career milestones but most of all about herself. A common theme is trying to find where she fits in — with her family, which includes a mother and father who fell hard in love with each other, then nearly as quickly fell out of love. With her homeland, which became embroiled in a horrifying war which pitted Serbians and Croatians against each other, neither group Furlan felt she belonged to. With being a famous actress in her homeland- but that fame forced her to flee when publicity against her reached vitriolic levels. With living in the United States as an immigrant.

Furlan was practically playing herself when she played Delenn: an idealist who becomes disgusted when people and circumstances don't measure up in her opinion, and she does not hold back on her opinions, which can be savage. This was an amazing book, highly reflective on not just her life but about the world around her.

[Jennifer Baratta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Mira Furlan

Thank you Goran for publishing in English! Thank you Mira for your gift and wisdom and courage. Read this book!

[Maja Skrlj-Tufegdzic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard yet beautiful memoirs, meditation on belonging, reflection on Yugoslav history, war, values, nationalism, migration…. Losses & gains …. So much that touches me on a personal level….

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a searingly honest autobiography of a remarkable women and a great actress. Mira Furlan was born in Yugoslavia to a multiethnic family in what was then a multiethnic country. She studied acting and soon became a star, appearing in theater, movies, and television in her own country. And then, suddenly, her world fell apart. Through the efforts of ultranationalists, Yugoslavia fell apart and suddenly everyone had to choose which ethnic group they were affiliated with. Mira refused to choose and she spoke out against what was happening, thereby losing many friends and earning the ire of what became the government of the new state of Croatia. Then the Balkan war began and the now-demonized actress and her husband fled to the United States. It is always hard to start all over again in another country but it is especially hard when you already have a career in your homeland. The experiences of Mira and her director husband were perhaps even harder because the world of television and movies in the United States is not only insular and but also only opens up to people who are different (think Blacks, Asians, Latinos), when strongly pressed or when something “exotic” is wanted. Besides, as Mira reiterates, actors are in a vulnerable position wherever in the world they work – vulnerable to directors, to producers, to fellow actors. Still, Mira did manage to appear in one 5-year series, Babylon 5, and made recurring appearances on the series Lost. Finally, when the Balkan wars ended, she was once again able to return to home to work as an actor while maintaining her home in the US. Not everything went smoothly – she was still controversial – but she worked regularly and I suspect that there are few people in the Balkan countries that did not recognize her. Often stopped on the street, people offered compliments and apologies for how she was mistreated though there were others who were less forgiving. This is the bare-bones of her story but what makes this autobiography so compelling is Mira’s honest description of her profound inner life – her insecurities (acquired in childhood, they never went away) and her many emotional ups and downs – one suspects that all these feelings also made her a great actress: she was able to project profound emotions from within herself whether on stage or in film. Mira also provides many insights based on her experiences during her life. She chronicles the ups and downs of her life as an immigrant in the US, noting in one place that the US also forces people into categories that are hard to escape or overcome. The insights into television-making in Hollywood that she provides are eye-opening. Finally, her observations on her homeland are equally astute (the Croatian version of her book is a best seller in her home country[s].). Mira Furlan passed away in 2021.

[Linda K · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a window into a woman who was profoundly hurt, trying to define herself outside of nationalism, and perhaps even outside of literal truth, if that truth didn’t feel safe or kind. What emerges is a portrait of someone shaped by emotional exile, who reassembled identity from whatever fragments could offer a sense of self. To me, the book is about the impossibility of truly belonging when your emotional foundation has been fractured in childhood. Furlan’s writing pulses with intellect, rage, tenderness, and a lifelong ache for connection — to family, to home, to something solid. This is a book for readers willing to sit with contradiction, who understand that sometimes our truths are felt rather than proven, and that identity can be an act of imagination as much as inheritance.