My Yugoslavia

The Winter 2007/08 issue of Passages: The Cultural Magazine of Pro Helvetia, contains a beautiful short essay by Ilma Rakusa, "My Yugoslavia," which I had the pleasure and privilege of translating.

For as long as I can remember, the country called South Slavia — for that is what Yugoslavia means — has belonged to me. As a child, I lived for a while in Ljubljana, and even when we moved to Trieste, we regularly visited my father's Slovenian relatives. My father also took my mother and me along on business trips to Zagreb and Belgrade. That was an adventure, for we travelled by car, and the roads were bad. Once, on the way to Zagreb at night, we ran over a rabbit, and a little while later, we were stopped by a farmer looking for a fugitive thief.

Passages is available from Pro Helvetia.