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Antigona and Me
'Antigona,' I said. 'How would you feel if I wrote your life down in a book?' 'Good', she said at once. 'Good. And then a feature film, actually. Mini-series'. One morning in London, two neighbours start to chat over the heads of their children. Kate Clanchy is a writer, privileged and sheltered, Antigona is a refugee from Kosovo. On instinct, Kate offers Antigona a job as a nanny, and Antigona, equally shrewdly, accepts. Over the next five years and a thousand cups of coffee Antigona's extraordinary story slowly emerges. She has escaped from a war, she has divorced a violent husband, but can she escape the harsh code she was brought up with, the Kanun of Lek? At the kitchen table where anything can be said, the women discover they have everything, as well as nothing, in common. 'Clanchy's portrait of Antigona is wonderfully vivid, as are her reflections on her own complex feelings. A powerfully written, refreshingly honest work' - "Observer".
273 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2008
12 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
Kate Clanchy
32 books85 followersKate Clanchy was educated in Edinburgh and Oxford University. She lived in London's East End for several years, before moving to Buckinghamshire where she now works as a teacher, journalist and freelance writer. Her poetry and seven radio plays have been broadcast by BBC Radio. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper; her work appeared in The Scotsman, the New Statesman and Poetry Review. She also writes for radio and broadcasts on the World Service and BBC Radio 3 and 4.
She is a Creative Writing Fellow of Oxford Brookes University and teaches Creative Writing at the Arvon Foundation. She is currently one of the writers-in-residence at the charity First Story. Her poetry has been included in A Book of Scottish Verse (2002) and The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry (2006)
She is a Creative Writing Fellow of Oxford Brookes University and teaches Creative Writing at the Arvon Foundation. She is currently one of the writers-in-residence at the charity First Story. Her poetry has been included in A Book of Scottish Verse (2002) and The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry (2006)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
September 19, 2009
Kate Clanchy's memoir of her friendship with Antigona examines what happens when the expectations and experiences of a North London poet collide with those of a Kossovan Albanian woman who is newly arrived in the UK. Antigona is everything the Daily Mail hates: an asylum-seeker (and, moreover, one who may not have been truthful in her asylum claim), a cash-in-hand worker who evades taxes and uses a false identity, a single mother. Kate is struck immediately by the force of Antigona's character, and her obvious personal strength. Seeing that Antigona is in financial need, she offers her a job, initially as her cleaner and later as her nanny. A deep friendship develops between the two women, yet the cultural divide can never truly be bridged. As Kate learns about the truly horrendous-sounding "Kanun of Lek" (the ancient mountain code of blood feuds and honour killings in which Antigona has been raised), her admiration grows as she contemplates Antigona's escape from a system where women are literally their husband's possessions, and in which domestic violence and rape at the hands of one's husband is accepted as normal. Yet as Antigona's daughters approach adulthood it is clear that the Kanun is still within her, dictating her feelings about what is acceptable behaviour for young women. Meanwhile, Kate contemplates a number of uncomfortable questions: what makes it right for her, as a relatively wealthy woman with a professional husband, to be able to purchase hours of another woman's life so that she can have "me time"? And if this also facilitates "quality time" with Kate's children, what of Antigona's own children and the time taken away from them? Clanchy explodes Germaine Greer's 1970 arguement that "brilliant women" must be freed up from childcare, by asking: what of the women who perform this service? What if they too have the capability to be "brilliant", but have lacked the opportunities to develop their talents (Antigona learns languages effortlessly, but is barely literate, school being considered an unnecessary luxury for girls who are destined for marriage and farming)? As a woman who has handed my children over to under-educated nursery workers, and stay-at-home mothers raising extra cash through childminding, so that I can go off to the office where I do my interesting job, I too squirm in contemplating these issues. This book manages to engage with tough questions of this nature whilst also being a touching and compelling description of Clanchy's empathy with Antigona, and the impact of violence and control on Antigona's life.
July 20, 2013
I bought this from the library sale bookshelf. I try not to buy books there because I have too many books already unread. But this is a book by a poet, and although the cover was a bit off putting, the first page wasn't.
I read from start to finish over three or four days. Each time I had to stop reading, I didn't want to put the book down. And yet, there isn't a clear narrative line that draws you through: there are several stories, anecdotes and events, all of which develop and enrich the central character of Antigona, the author's cleaning lady who becomes a friend, an adoptive sister. Antigona is a Kosovan refugee. She is also larger than life, a heroine, a protagonist in a great drama, a mixture of triumph and tragedy. She is, as they say, something else.
I talk a lot about how, in my own culture, people (including me) are socialised into behaving in specific ways, holding particular moral and religious beliefs. I've never read anything that so powerfully illustrated the power of culture and the opposing power of love in individual circumstances. The role of 'shame' in this novel is chilling. To read this is to understand the circumstances of some of our fictional heroines (Tess of the D'Urbervilles?) in a whole new way. The reality of is terrifying and terrifyingly ordinary.
The book is about women. There are men in the book but the heart of the book, the driving force, the sheer survivor dynamism -- this comes from the women. They are amazingly strong. They are unforgettable. And the range of ways of surviving and fighting back is stunning.
The narrator is Kate Clanchy, educated white woman from nice family. Poet. Yes, of course I identified with her. To all intents and purposes I am her. But the stuff she describes, the lives she shares - this is here and now, not in Kosovo (though Kosovo and Albania are deeply involved) but here in the UK, where the mingling of races and cultures is something I'm part of too, but which I mainly forget to notice.
When I got to the end of this book, I felt changed by it.
I read from start to finish over three or four days. Each time I had to stop reading, I didn't want to put the book down. And yet, there isn't a clear narrative line that draws you through: there are several stories, anecdotes and events, all of which develop and enrich the central character of Antigona, the author's cleaning lady who becomes a friend, an adoptive sister. Antigona is a Kosovan refugee. She is also larger than life, a heroine, a protagonist in a great drama, a mixture of triumph and tragedy. She is, as they say, something else.
I talk a lot about how, in my own culture, people (including me) are socialised into behaving in specific ways, holding particular moral and religious beliefs. I've never read anything that so powerfully illustrated the power of culture and the opposing power of love in individual circumstances. The role of 'shame' in this novel is chilling. To read this is to understand the circumstances of some of our fictional heroines (Tess of the D'Urbervilles?) in a whole new way. The reality of is terrifying and terrifyingly ordinary.
The book is about women. There are men in the book but the heart of the book, the driving force, the sheer survivor dynamism -- this comes from the women. They are amazingly strong. They are unforgettable. And the range of ways of surviving and fighting back is stunning.
The narrator is Kate Clanchy, educated white woman from nice family. Poet. Yes, of course I identified with her. To all intents and purposes I am her. But the stuff she describes, the lives she shares - this is here and now, not in Kosovo (though Kosovo and Albania are deeply involved) but here in the UK, where the mingling of races and cultures is something I'm part of too, but which I mainly forget to notice.
When I got to the end of this book, I felt changed by it.
November 28, 2022
I chose this book after reading an article in The Guardian about Kate Clanchy and the controversy over another of her books, a memoir, which was apparently heavily criticized on Goodreads. I haven't read either the book or the reviews but I wanted to get this up front in case anyone were to reply to my review--not that I have a wide fan base--asking me if I was aware of Clanchy's failings. The answer is, yes I am but I judge a book on how I feel about it, what it evokes in me. And "Antigona and Me" opened my eyes up wider to cultural differences among women, how, however hard we try, we can't really ever "get" another person's culture and we grow more when we admit this and try not to pretend that we do. And how women's experiences in the world of refugees and domestic work in foreign places were rarely written about and how much we need to read about them, think about them, compare our lives and never, ever take our own situation for granted again.
The book is Clanchy's biography--authorized so she says--of a Kosovo woman she knew/knows (the book was written back in 2008) in London, whom she calls Antigona. In the Preface, she recounts her conversation with Antigona thusly: "'How would you feel if I wrote your life down, Antigona? Like, in a book?' 'Good,' she said at once, as if she had already thought of it. 'Good. And then a feature film, actually. Mini-series.' I said I didn't think I could deliver on the feature film front, but that I thought her story was very interesting and exciting and--'Yes,' she said. 'It makes me feel happy--a book. It makes me feel relaxed. For me. And because there are a thousand women behind me in this country [UK], having shit lives, 'scuse my language. No one can understand their lives here. They are struck, they cannot move forward. It takes one to break the ice.'"
Whether this is a true recounting or whether we should now view Clanchy, given her admitted slips in her other memoir, as being a less than honest narrator, is up to the next reader. For me, even if I were to discover the whole thing a fiction, Clanchy's honest admission within the book of being judgmental, privileged, but also of not making Antigona either saint or sinner but showing that she is every bit as human and imperfect as we are, that it's okay to feel not only tremendous compassion for the situation--the horrifying war in Kosovo, Antigona's being abused not only by the Serbs who invaded her homeland but by her brothers, by her husband--but also understanding as much as it is possible for us to understand, her then in turn abusing her daughters when they stepped out of her cultural line in London.
Mainly it's the story of a friendship between two women that grows out of a mutual need and of a willingness on Antigona's part to share so much of her story, of her life, with an Englishwoman who is her employer. How much of Clanchy's own life stories and feelings she shared with Antigona isn't really revealed; this story is about Antigona and her family, Clanchy only talks about herself in relation to how she feels about Antigona. And, to me, it's obvious that she cares very deeply about her as a friend. I didn't catch any sense of racism in Clanchy's retelling, what judgements Clanchy makes, she is quite honest about. For example in this excerpt, referring to Greer's "The Female Eunuch":
"I like to think of housework and child-work as being creative. In my life, that is how they function: a rich, earthy, anchoring force. But in Antigona's life, an education in housework has removed the possibility of being creative. Antigona didn't want to weave or spin: she wanted to talk and learn, and she missed her chance. Much as she has changed here, the change from the life of the body to the life of the pen is beyond her.
This exceptionally verbal woman will never write because she was forced to clean instead of reading; this gifted linguist will never translate; this swift athlete will never know how high she could have jumped, and I benefit by her stunting.
Greer is surely right to say that the family must be more flexible and that mothers must be able to do things other than mother - it's just that 'mothers' must include Antigona. 'Brilliant women' are in no danger of being 'bred out': rather, they are everywhere sup-pressed. We cannot create an ideal family set-up in Calabria, nor in any other South, off the backs of women who have had other possibilities in their lives removed."
To me, Clanchy is right on in her observation; feminism was so often, is still so often, a preserve that only privileged women with time and money--which bring freedom--on their hands can indulge in. She also, later on, addresses the criticisms that have been lobbed at her in one of the rare passages in the book that are squarely about her rather than Antigona: "....The rage comes back to me about my poems: in public criticism I am accused of representing women - all women - too 'conservatively or too 'radically'; in private I receive odd emails from women convinced a particular poem is about them.
They are angry because, in representing what I thought was myself, I have represented them, wrongly.
This rage, like all the richest anger, comes from the most vulnerable parts of the self. If you are a woman, what people think of you is part of yourself. 'Men watch women, women watch themselves being watched,' as I have been repeating to myself ever since I read it in John Berger when I was twenty. Women make themselves up out of reflections, and they use other women as reflections. That is why women surround themselves with images of women, not men: women are mirrors, and the mirror is the self. Am I like that one? they say - or that one? Am I fatter than her?
Sexier than her? Should she be ashamed? O mirror, does my bum look big this?"
I suppose that this could be interpreted that in saying she was writing about Antigona, Clanchy was really writing her own story as well. But no one can deny that what Clanchy writes about in terms of the Kosovo atrocities is true and she writes in a voice that bears witness to actually having been there. And, in the aftermath, when Antigona goes to Albania to find her scattered family, that is in another's voice as well.
This book touched me deeply. It awakened feelings about what it means to be a writer, the dangers of writing others' stories, and to be a reader, what I choose to believe, what I choose to take into myself, to remember. Love it or not, I dare you to read and not have it in some way affect you.
The book is Clanchy's biography--authorized so she says--of a Kosovo woman she knew/knows (the book was written back in 2008) in London, whom she calls Antigona. In the Preface, she recounts her conversation with Antigona thusly: "'How would you feel if I wrote your life down, Antigona? Like, in a book?' 'Good,' she said at once, as if she had already thought of it. 'Good. And then a feature film, actually. Mini-series.' I said I didn't think I could deliver on the feature film front, but that I thought her story was very interesting and exciting and--'Yes,' she said. 'It makes me feel happy--a book. It makes me feel relaxed. For me. And because there are a thousand women behind me in this country [UK], having shit lives, 'scuse my language. No one can understand their lives here. They are struck, they cannot move forward. It takes one to break the ice.'"
Whether this is a true recounting or whether we should now view Clanchy, given her admitted slips in her other memoir, as being a less than honest narrator, is up to the next reader. For me, even if I were to discover the whole thing a fiction, Clanchy's honest admission within the book of being judgmental, privileged, but also of not making Antigona either saint or sinner but showing that she is every bit as human and imperfect as we are, that it's okay to feel not only tremendous compassion for the situation--the horrifying war in Kosovo, Antigona's being abused not only by the Serbs who invaded her homeland but by her brothers, by her husband--but also understanding as much as it is possible for us to understand, her then in turn abusing her daughters when they stepped out of her cultural line in London.
Mainly it's the story of a friendship between two women that grows out of a mutual need and of a willingness on Antigona's part to share so much of her story, of her life, with an Englishwoman who is her employer. How much of Clanchy's own life stories and feelings she shared with Antigona isn't really revealed; this story is about Antigona and her family, Clanchy only talks about herself in relation to how she feels about Antigona. And, to me, it's obvious that she cares very deeply about her as a friend. I didn't catch any sense of racism in Clanchy's retelling, what judgements Clanchy makes, she is quite honest about. For example in this excerpt, referring to Greer's "The Female Eunuch":
"I like to think of housework and child-work as being creative. In my life, that is how they function: a rich, earthy, anchoring force. But in Antigona's life, an education in housework has removed the possibility of being creative. Antigona didn't want to weave or spin: she wanted to talk and learn, and she missed her chance. Much as she has changed here, the change from the life of the body to the life of the pen is beyond her.
This exceptionally verbal woman will never write because she was forced to clean instead of reading; this gifted linguist will never translate; this swift athlete will never know how high she could have jumped, and I benefit by her stunting.
Greer is surely right to say that the family must be more flexible and that mothers must be able to do things other than mother - it's just that 'mothers' must include Antigona. 'Brilliant women' are in no danger of being 'bred out': rather, they are everywhere sup-pressed. We cannot create an ideal family set-up in Calabria, nor in any other South, off the backs of women who have had other possibilities in their lives removed."
To me, Clanchy is right on in her observation; feminism was so often, is still so often, a preserve that only privileged women with time and money--which bring freedom--on their hands can indulge in. She also, later on, addresses the criticisms that have been lobbed at her in one of the rare passages in the book that are squarely about her rather than Antigona: "....The rage comes back to me about my poems: in public criticism I am accused of representing women - all women - too 'conservatively or too 'radically'; in private I receive odd emails from women convinced a particular poem is about them.
They are angry because, in representing what I thought was myself, I have represented them, wrongly.
This rage, like all the richest anger, comes from the most vulnerable parts of the self. If you are a woman, what people think of you is part of yourself. 'Men watch women, women watch themselves being watched,' as I have been repeating to myself ever since I read it in John Berger when I was twenty. Women make themselves up out of reflections, and they use other women as reflections. That is why women surround themselves with images of women, not men: women are mirrors, and the mirror is the self. Am I like that one? they say - or that one? Am I fatter than her?
Sexier than her? Should she be ashamed? O mirror, does my bum look big this?"
I suppose that this could be interpreted that in saying she was writing about Antigona, Clanchy was really writing her own story as well. But no one can deny that what Clanchy writes about in terms of the Kosovo atrocities is true and she writes in a voice that bears witness to actually having been there. And, in the aftermath, when Antigona goes to Albania to find her scattered family, that is in another's voice as well.
This book touched me deeply. It awakened feelings about what it means to be a writer, the dangers of writing others' stories, and to be a reader, what I choose to believe, what I choose to take into myself, to remember. Love it or not, I dare you to read and not have it in some way affect you.
October 23, 2012
A massively moving book detailing the relationship between two women, the author, a middle class poet living in an expensive house in London, and her maid, a Kosovan refugee escaping an abusive husband as well as a war-torn country. The story bare as bones would be interesting enough, but Clanchy adds to it other dimensions, not least feminist perspectives and middle class guilt. Her account of the relationship is deeply introspective and arguably overly critical on her side, but it is honest, deeply emotional and exceedingly dignified. This is a book that could spark a thousand conversations and I recommend every woman read this. Every man too.
March 9, 2009
Simply superb telling of the meeting of women from two different cultures. Kate Clanchy's exploration of her cleaner/nanny/friend/sister's experience of being an illegal refugee immigrant in the UK is striking. The writing is so good - warm, friendly, and immediate in tone, Clanchy manages to bring humour to some pretty dire circumstances. The strength of the book is that it is not just a sad tale of refugees but also an intelligent analysis of how we (me) live as white, middle class Brits in the 'burbs.
January 5, 2021
written like a conversation at times, idk. educational
September 3, 2018
An Albanian refugee and a poet, writer academic meet. Their worlds are the crashing together of the old testament and a feminist new. Antigone come from a place where it is not just an eye for an eye, but an eye for your whole village burned to the ground. Tit for tat and worse. People are property whether wives, sons, daughters or in-laws.
Personal feelings are not accounted for and there is no forgiveness. Self-sacrifice, determination and stoicism, keep individuals from despair. These qualities make the most mundane laborious task bearable. It’s not who you work for, it’s who you work with.
That sense of collegiate support during motherhood that once hung between the female generations and extended kinship networks is more often built around NCT groups, close relationships are formed with strangers, but can be burnt when a new job opportunity calls. The children are lost track of, I search my mind, but I can’t quite remember them all now…
Where was I? Antigone – likeable and beautiful, yet flawed (aren’t we all). Abusive to her daughter, workaholic with a knife edge temper and filled with double-standards. Clanchy writes energetically well, capturing the episodic ebbs and flows of their relationship, the ‘by proxy’ dramas are described without being mawkish.
The personal aspect makes Antigona’s situation relatable, highlights the absurdity of refugees being returned to their villages – they are simply not the same anymore.
The narrative is honest about the frustrations and contradictions in both women’s lives. At least it tries to frame the question of women’s continued ‘double-shift’ at home and at work. It also reaches to understand the loss of the celebration of early motherhood, without neurosis or commercialism, and recognises that the simple life-affirming power of loving someone is being drilled away.
There is something here that will rest with me, in time it may enlighten me about my own family, my own experience of motherhood and now writing. My own discipline of leaving the ‘housework’ and coping with leaving things untidy still inevitably leaves me with lots to do at the end of the day, but I cannot see things being a bit unclean as a mark of personal failure or moral weakness. I’m simply doing other things I value more. Isn’t that a line feminists would approve of? It’s not necessarily ‘paid work’ though, it might be gardening or reading a book to my youngest or going for a jog, or watching my sons play football. I’d rather do any of them than toothbrush clean around the sinks.
But when I do cleanI can acknowledge and value the fact that it’s an action that links me to my female forebears and sisters. We have just gradually become less clean.
Gabrielle Barnby
Orkney, July, 2018
Personal feelings are not accounted for and there is no forgiveness. Self-sacrifice, determination and stoicism, keep individuals from despair. These qualities make the most mundane laborious task bearable. It’s not who you work for, it’s who you work with.
That sense of collegiate support during motherhood that once hung between the female generations and extended kinship networks is more often built around NCT groups, close relationships are formed with strangers, but can be burnt when a new job opportunity calls. The children are lost track of, I search my mind, but I can’t quite remember them all now…
Where was I? Antigone – likeable and beautiful, yet flawed (aren’t we all). Abusive to her daughter, workaholic with a knife edge temper and filled with double-standards. Clanchy writes energetically well, capturing the episodic ebbs and flows of their relationship, the ‘by proxy’ dramas are described without being mawkish.
The personal aspect makes Antigona’s situation relatable, highlights the absurdity of refugees being returned to their villages – they are simply not the same anymore.
The narrative is honest about the frustrations and contradictions in both women’s lives. At least it tries to frame the question of women’s continued ‘double-shift’ at home and at work. It also reaches to understand the loss of the celebration of early motherhood, without neurosis or commercialism, and recognises that the simple life-affirming power of loving someone is being drilled away.
There is something here that will rest with me, in time it may enlighten me about my own family, my own experience of motherhood and now writing. My own discipline of leaving the ‘housework’ and coping with leaving things untidy still inevitably leaves me with lots to do at the end of the day, but I cannot see things being a bit unclean as a mark of personal failure or moral weakness. I’m simply doing other things I value more. Isn’t that a line feminists would approve of? It’s not necessarily ‘paid work’ though, it might be gardening or reading a book to my youngest or going for a jog, or watching my sons play football. I’d rather do any of them than toothbrush clean around the sinks.
But when I do cleanI can acknowledge and value the fact that it’s an action that links me to my female forebears and sisters. We have just gradually become less clean.
Gabrielle Barnby
Orkney, July, 2018
February 27, 2021
I am really pleased to have reread this, although it was harrowing at times. I read it with my book club back in 2010, but in 2020 started following Kate Clanchy on Twitter as she shared the poems of some of her students, and then went on to read her amazing book 'Some kids I taught and what they taught me'. This won the Orwell prize in 2020 for political writing but it's also a rattling good narrative. I gobbled it up, like this one based on her own life experience, and left me feeling so in tune with her beliefs and difficult choices and with a strengthened belief in human nature and what it can deliver. Took me a while to realise that Antigona, which I remembered reading, was also by her and happily found it without difficulty on my shelves. So many of the issues which Kate and Antigona were struggling with in the early part of this century are still current. Intelligent women, motherhood and the challenge of balancing careers and domestic responsibilities is one; Kate enormously values Antigona's hard work in keeping Kate's and her own houses clean and her children well cared for, but feels guilty about relying on it. Another sort of difficult balancing is around different cultures, as Antigone tries to reconcile what she loves about the British way of life, and the expectations of her Kosovan Albanian family and the demands of the daunting Kanun of Lek, made even more difficult as her daughters grow up in a multicultural society. Immigration laws and treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants have not got any more humane in the last 10 years either. It is beautifully told and gave me a wonderful mixture of thoughts, joy and tears as the story unfolded. I look forward to rereading again.
November 8, 2020
This is a must read. Delightful writing, enjoyable, funny while exploring bold territory (our attitude to migrants and refugees, the politics of domestic work, the guilt of working, middle-class mothers). Such a clever and important book. This is the (slightly fictionalised) account of Kate's relationship with a Kosovan refugee she met and employed, on a whim, to clean her house and take care of her children. Clanchy describes, in the book, how difficult it was to tell Antigona's story, how she had to seek permission and, in the end, approach it very clearly from her own point of view. I am so glad she had the courage to go ahead and explore some of those uncomfortable exchanges, because who else is going to tell this story? Certainly not Antigona herself, who, if you read the book, you will find, has enough to be dealing with. And what a story it is. Take a look. You won't be disappointed.
June 1, 2021
I loved this book, rather to my surprise as I was expecting to find it somewhat dated in 2021 (it is generally set in the early 2000s) The development of the relationship between the two women and the impact of Antigona, her culture, beliefs and extraordinary individual strength on the author are recounted with a sympathetic honesty and authenticity. The Albanian references are well-researched and readable. I had that feeling of loss at the end and wanted it to carry on, to know more about how Antigona's story and that of her children ended. I will read some more by Kate Clancy after this, and whilst I can see it would not be for everyone, the questions and issues about motherhood, female friendships, refugee status and above all perhaps friendship are beautifully addressed. I loved it.
April 5, 2024
This book was such an interesting read. Telling the tale of a friendship between an English woman from North London and a woman from Kosovo who had come to the UK as a refugee.
I think this book offered some real balance against some of the really negative portrayal that we can sometimes see in the media of asylum seekers and refugees.
The way the book is written in an accessible way - showcasing a series of stories.
I think the author did a great job of sharing a story which highlights cultural differences and the experiences of women from different cultures and backgrounds. This made it informative but in such an enjoyable way.
This was such a moving read; I don’t think I will forget this book - something about it really spoke to me and it’ll stick with me forever.
I think this book offered some real balance against some of the really negative portrayal that we can sometimes see in the media of asylum seekers and refugees.
The way the book is written in an accessible way - showcasing a series of stories.
I think the author did a great job of sharing a story which highlights cultural differences and the experiences of women from different cultures and backgrounds. This made it informative but in such an enjoyable way.
This was such a moving read; I don’t think I will forget this book - something about it really spoke to me and it’ll stick with me forever.
March 9, 2018
I really wanted to love this book - and I did initially, but then I got bored.
The story of he Albanian treatment of women and the Kanun of Lek is horrifying, and the blood feuds that continue for years is well known across those areas - and in Sardinia and other remote areas too. I thought at first that Antigona was a great character and inspiration, but as the story develops she became less so, and I got bored of all the discussion about the Kanun and the relatives and the way women should behave and...
It certainly was very tragic and the life these women led in Albania was horrific but how many times can you say it and not de-sensitise your reader?
The story of he Albanian treatment of women and the Kanun of Lek is horrifying, and the blood feuds that continue for years is well known across those areas - and in Sardinia and other remote areas too. I thought at first that Antigona was a great character and inspiration, but as the story develops she became less so, and I got bored of all the discussion about the Kanun and the relatives and the way women should behave and...
It certainly was very tragic and the life these women led in Albania was horrific but how many times can you say it and not de-sensitise your reader?
December 16, 2018
This story touches so many important places: cultures colliding (imploding, eroding) and what it can mean to use your privilege to help those who don't have it. Kate Clancy's heart is big and smart and this story is sweet, yes, but also raw. There aren't answers here, but all the best questions. Her direct, clear prose holds the fractured stories together.
I knew of Kate's work as a teaching artist; she helps refugee students create stunning poetry. When I found this book on Josh's shelf, I had no idea she wrote anything other than poetry. I am so glad she lived this and wrote about it.
I knew of Kate's work as a teaching artist; she helps refugee students create stunning poetry. When I found this book on Josh's shelf, I had no idea she wrote anything other than poetry. I am so glad she lived this and wrote about it.
July 14, 2025
Good book. Some key insights refugees and migrants particularly the Kosovo Albanian and Melesi, but also on “the problem“ of women expecting to have a career be the primary caregiver of children and keep a house, clean. Beautiful descriptions of social and culture clashes between British western and European traditional. Deep insights beautifully written.
June 13, 2019
I liked this book, but was unsatisfied with the ending -- perhaps that was Clancy's purpose. I thought that Clancy's self-reflection and honesty was bold. This is a great "case study" of the lives of refugees.
May 17, 2024
Not really about the Greek myth, but still a nice and compelling book, very personal, poetic and honest, about womanhood, motherhood, class relations and class struggle, cultural dialogue and living together with people from different countries and traditions.
November 6, 2024
This book is an interesting insight into the current history of Balkans and the tragic fate of people displayed by war. The story is about an Albanian woman trying to survive and to build a new life for herself and her family.
March 24, 2025
Easy to read and interesting and educational. Never really thought about Kosovo and Albania and the corresponding London communities, and this book painted an effective portrait from a British viewpoint.
September 29, 2019
A beautifully moving book
July 16, 2023
Powerful! O thing we think about being a refuge and or someone fleeing political and or domestic violence is as we think…. I really appreciate this author!!!
January 9, 2025
Fascinating and humbling account of a country and people with a harrowing past.
July 28, 2025
Nice reading this after having been in Albania
January 8, 2021
hav a personal attachment cos studied it & had that ‘click moment’ lit students always be talking bout, leading to the best essay of my student career
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to read: mostly enjoyable , but lengggg sometimes to get to the point an kate,,, a want words
...
to read: mostly enjoyable , but lengggg sometimes to get to the point an kate,,, a want words
July 23, 2011
Powerful book this. Gets to the heart of the challenges of being a middle class woman and mum in 21st century Britain. By contrast with life from rural Kosovo Clanchy shows the much of what has been gained and lost with the progress in our society - with an emphasis on the gain. It is also a reminder of the power of honour, respect and duty in Kosovo and for Kosovans, and by extension other similarly developed countries.
September 4, 2016
An interesting and intriguing account of the author's relationship with Kosovan refugee, Antigona, and her family. Employing Antigona as a cleaner and then nanny, Kate Clanchy helps her to settle in to life in the UK while at the same time recounting Antigona's tale of the horrors she suffered in her homeland and during her escape. Gives a whole new perspective to refugees/asylum seekers and is very readable - 8/10.
February 3, 2013
I was completely blown away by this book. Kate Clanchy becomes the employer of a woman who for privacy purposes she calls 'Antigona'. All I can say is 'read this book'. It will make you think, it will challenge your preconceptions and it will educate you - while being an entertaining and compelling true life story.
Kate Clanchy is already a highly respected poet, and this work shows her ability to write wonderful prose. I look forward to what she does next.
Kate Clanchy is already a highly respected poet, and this work shows her ability to write wonderful prose. I look forward to what she does next.
April 29, 2010
read this after hearing it recommended on BBC Radio4's A Good Read, there titled Antigona and Me( Paperback version). This programme has been the source of many a thought provoking read and this can be added to that list. Well written account with interesting discussion of female liberation and supression and cultural norms.
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July 29, 2014A personal narrative of the relationship between two young mothers in London. One a teacher and writer, the other a Kosovo refugee. I learnt loads and was also moved by the contrast of modern life for these two women, who form an unlikely friendship and support each other.
Motherhood and culture form the two main themes described in a mostly readable biography.
Motherhood and culture form the two main themes described in a mostly readable biography.
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August 7, 2011some of the subject matter is quite difficult and upsetting. However, with recent election chit chat about immigrants etc it is very topical and i learnt some things not only about our system here but about the Kosovan people themselves (and how they behave etc in this country and their own)
May 25, 2016
I'm glad I read this because it opened my eyes in realising that my family could be in a much worse country than they already are- and to see how their country is heading and the consequences of this ridiculous idea called communism.
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