All Intensive Purposes

It took me ten years to read Isabel Fonseca's Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey, and now I regret it. The book is an awesome combination of field work, reportage, and academic research. Fonseca spent substantial time living with a Gypy family in Albania, the focus of the book's first section, and much more time on the ground in Eastern Europe, particularly in Rumania and Hungary, and her descriptions of who she met and what she saw are lucid and well-done. But she also surveys the academic work done to date, such as it is, and not in English alone. For example, Fonseca has delved into Rumanian archives to find historical accounts of the enslavement of Gypsies, a historical stain of no moment to most Rumanians and something that Gypsies -- most of whom are illiterate, and lack an written tradition of any sort -- do not know about either.

Fonseca argues that the Gypsies are of comparable historical importance in Europe to the Jews, but that while the Jews enjoy a tradition of learning and accomplishment which assures their place in the historical record, the Gypsies have been marginalized and have marginalized themselves. As Fonseca describes, they often live on the margin, literally enough -- near jurisdictional borders, for example, where they are less likely to arouse official attention. And yet their position as a scapegoat in newly democraticizing Eastern European countries seems sadly secure. Fonseca investigates atrocities against various Gypsy communities, and the woeful and sometimes complicit official response.

As I say, it's an impressive book. I would love to know what Fonseca has been doing since she published it, and I would love to hear an update from her on what has transpired for the Gypsies in the last ten years.