Slavenka Drakulić - A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism

“Where less sensitive observers might only bemoan the legacy of communism, Drakulić knows her people well and sees the redeeming nature of all their human frailty; for their sake, we should read her book.”

“An important and timely book that deserves the widest possible audience.”

“In this powerful series of reports from The Hague’s international courtroom, Slavenka Drakulić confronts the Yugoslav war’s grand villains and banal perpetrators as she fearlessly contemplates both the individual character of evil and the tragic, chillingly impersonal mechanisms of war. Writing with her hallmark blend of forthrightness, open-eyed irony, and psychological discernment, Drakulić gives us disturbingly intimate vignettes of war criminals who might have been her own (and our) neighbors, even as she illuminates one of our time’s most daunting and urgent questions: How ordinary men and women turn, and are turned, into genocidal killers. An important and a necessary book.”

“In the first in-depth look at the war crimes trials in The Hague, Slavenka Drakulić has written a deeply personal and lucid account. She brings to life the men who destroyed Yugoslavia—mediocre people who committed extraordinary crimes.”

“Lucidly written… a devastating book… [Drakulić’s] direct, personal style does justice to the weight and grimness of these stories.”

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

First published in Penguin Books 2011

Copyright © Slavenka Drakulić, 2011

All rights reserved

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint “A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism,” “The Cat-Keeper in Warsaw” and “An Interview with the Oldest Dog in Bucharest” from Two Underdogs and a Cat by Slavenka Drakulić. Copyright © Slavenka Drakulić, 2009.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Drakulić, Slavenka, 1949-

A guided tour through the museum of communism : fables from a mouse, a parrot, a bear, a cat, a mole, a pig, a dog, and a raven / Slavenka Drakulić. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-50252-5

1. Communism—Europe, Eastern—Fiction. 2. Post-Communism—Europe, Eastern—

Fiction. 3. Animals—Fiction. 4. Satire. I. Title.

PS3554.R2375G85 2011

813’.54—dc22 2010038778

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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