As If I Am Not There
Abacus(November 1999)
www.timewarnerbooks.co.uk
Set against the violent backdrop of the recent war in the Balkans, Drakuliæ tells a heart-wrenching story of brutality, survival and redemption. S., a teacher in a Bosnian village, is 29 when she is imprisoned in a Serbian concentration camp. The room she is held in has one gruesome purpose: it is here that the Serb soldiers systematically rape their female prisoners. When S. finally escapes, she finds out that she is pregnant: she wants an abortion and is devastated when it is too late. Yet as she cradles her newborn baby, still contemplating its death, she begins to recognize that the child is not responsible for the violence of its conception and that its innocence might be the saving grace of her life.
“Slavenka Drakuliæ is a journalist and writer whose voice belongs to the world. If the purpose of bringing down the walls of Eastern Europe had been only to let us hear it, that would have been reason enough.” – Gloria Steinem
“A disturbingly insightful novel of love gone wrong … gruesome and highly accomplished.” – Time Out
Foreign rights have been sold to the U.S., Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, Holland, Greece, Norway, Kerala, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Spain (Galician) and Italy.
Film rights have been optioned by Metropolitan Film Productions.
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