No Return Address

by Anca Vlasopolos

No Return Address is a vivid memoir of a life in exile and a poignant meditation on pleasure and loss, repression and transgression, and the complexities of love under harsh human conditions. In recounting her life's journey from Romania to Paris and Brussels, then on to the United States, Anca Vlasopolos writes movingly of the peculiar attributes of displacement in the contemporary world―the hyphenated, ambiguous identities; the purgatory in which immigrants await transfer to another country; the mysterious nostalgia for places and events dimly recalled. Throughout, she describes the constant search for a place to truly call home.

Vlasopolos renders a clear and loving portrait of her mother, an Auschwitz survivor courageously raising a young girl by herself after the death of her husband, a political dissident. She details their years of limbo in Brussels and Paris and of settlement in Detroit, Michigan, as well as her ultimate decision to identify the United States as home, inspired by the strong multicultural quality that allows so many others to do the same.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Anca Vlasopolos was born in 1948 in Bucharest, Rumania. She immigrated to the United States with her mother in 1963. She was educated at Wayne State University (B. A. in French and English, with Honors in English, and highest distinction) and at the University of Michigan, where she earned an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. She is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Wayne State University. She is married and has two daughters.

Reviews

[Victoria L · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had hard time to read this book. I read a lot of WWII books and this was very different not in a good way. I felt like the story was jumping from one place to the other and there was no flow. I had hard time to follow or find motivation & inspiration to finish this book.

[Anne P. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an autobiography of a woman born in the early 1950s whose childhood was spend in Communist Romania, Brussels Belgium, and Paris. Her father was a "Greek Political Dissident" (from the front flap) and her mother a survivor of Auschwitz.
The book is filled with vibrant details about living, shopping, going to school, and observing the way her parents and their friends & neighbors treat one another, via remembered conversations. That was enough to keep me engaged throughout the book.
Another enjoyable aspect of the book was the evidence of what a loving family this was, given the dangerous and unstable environments all three of them survived by necessity.
Occasionally I found the writing a little over-embellished, but now I would like to find some of her poetry, where that might be great.
Hope you like it.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderfully written memior that i hold in my heart and dont let go...ever. so dont try and steal it, but put it in your heart. it is lovely and it talks about how i imagine my city. tear.