This story begins in Czechoslovakia in the early 1930s when Zoli, a young Roma girl, is six years old. With her family drowned by the fascist Hlinka guards, Zoli and her grandfather head off in search of a 'company'. Zoli teaches herself to read and write and becomes a singer, a privileged position in a gypsy company as they are viewed as the guardians of the gypsy tradition. But Zoli is different because she secretly writes down some of her songs.
With the rise of the Nazis, the suppression of the gypsies intensifies. The war ends when Zoli is sixteen and, with the spread of socialism, the Roma are suddenly regarded as 'comrades' again. Zoli meets Stephen Swann, a man with whom she will have a passionate affair but who will also betray her. He persuades Zoli to publish some of her work. But when the government try to use Zoli to help them in their plan to 'settle' gypsies, her community turns against her and she is exiled forever.
Author Biography
Colum McCann was born in Dublin in 1965. He has won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and been nominated for both the Irish Times Fiction Prize and the Impac Prize. He was recently presented with the Princess Grace Memorial Award. He has travelled widely and is currently based in New York with his wife and children.
