Sofija Stefanovic
Autor von Miss Ex-Yugoslavia: A Memoir
Über den Autor
Sofija Stefanovic is a Serbian-Australian writer and storyteller based in Manhattan. She hosts This Alien Nation-a monthly celebration of immigration at Joe's Pub. She's a regular storyteller with The Moth. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, among others. Learn more at mehr anzeigen SofijaStefanovic.com. weniger anzeigen
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Miss Ex-Yugoslavia: A Memoir von Sofija Stefanovic
This was a fun departure from some of my darker and more serious reads. The protagonist grew up in Belgrade and remembers it fondly for many reasons, but the geopolitical realities of the breakup of Yugoslavia cause her immediate family to emigrate to Australia. Her father does well in a career there, but the family struggles through the very common issues of immigrants thousands of miles from their home countries, and frequently goes back and forth. The story ends with Sofija in her late teens, having gotten a better handle on her identity and competing in a diasporic beauty pageant of other young women that had similar experiences. A delightful coming-of-age story that didn't sugarcoat how hard she and her family had to struggle.… (mehr)
I came across this interesting memoir via Non-Fiction November, when I read the review at What’s Non Fiction.
Sofija Stefanovic is based in New York, but like me, she’s an Australian with roots elsewhere. She was born in what was Yugoslavia and is now Serbia, and migrated to Australia to escape the growing instability in the 1980s. Her father loved it here, but her mother missed home, so (having prudently acquired Australian citizenship first) they went back, only to find that things were worse than before. And so they returned, to join the community of Yugoslavs in Melbourne, whose numbers were by then swollen by refugees fleeing the violence.
To deflect any sense that this is another misery memoir of discrimination and not belonging, Stefanovic begins with a droll chapter about a beauty pageant that she has organised. The competitors are all from the now separate countries that used to be Yugoslavia:
She is herself a competitor, but she is struggling with the ‘look’.
This jaunty style is maintained throughout the book, transitioning into a more serious tone only when the author explains the political chaos that was the catalyst for her family’s migrations, or when there is personal tragedy. The story covers her childhood, teenage years and early adult years, adjusting to the differences between a crumbling soviet society and a liberal democracy.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/12/07/miss-ex-yugoslavia-by-sofija-stefanovic/… (mehr)
Sofija Stefanovic is based in New York, but like me, she’s an Australian with roots elsewhere. She was born in what was Yugoslavia and is now Serbia, and migrated to Australia to escape the growing instability in the 1980s. Her father loved it here, but her mother missed home, so (having prudently acquired Australian citizenship first) they went back, only to find that things were worse than before. And so they returned, to join the community of Yugoslavs in Melbourne, whose numbers were by then swollen by refugees fleeing the violence.
To deflect any sense that this is another misery memoir of discrimination and not belonging, Stefanovic begins with a droll chapter about a beauty pageant that she has organised. The competitors are all from the now separate countries that used to be Yugoslavia:
The idea of a beauty pageant freaks me out, and ex-Yugoslavia as a country itself is an oxymoron — but the combination of the two makes the deliciously weird Miss Ex-Yugoslavia competition the ideal subject for my documentary film-making class. (p. ix)
She is herself a competitor, but she is struggling with the ‘look’.
It’s 2005, I’m twenty-two, and I’ve been living in Australia for most of my life. I’m at Joy, an empty Melbourne nightclub that smells of stale smoke and is located above a fruit and vegetable market. I open the door to the dressing room, and when my eyes adjust to the fluorescent lights I see that young women are rubbing olive oil on each other’s thighs. Apparently, this is a trick used in ‘real’ competitions, one we’ve hijacked for our amateur version. For weeks I’ve been preparing myself to stand almost naked in front of everyone I know, and the day of the big reveal has come around quickly. As I scan the shiny bodies for my friend Nina, I’m dismayed to see that all the other girls have dead-straight hair, while mine, thanks to an overzealous hairdresser with a curling wand, looks like a wig made of sausages.
‘Dodi, lutko,’ Nina says as she emerges from the crowd of girls. Come here, doll. ‘Maybe we can straighten it.’ She brings her hand up to my hair cautiously, as if petting a startled lamb. Nina is a Bosnian refugee in a miniskirt. As a contestant she is technically my competitor, but we’ve become close in the rehearsals leading up to the pageant.
Under Nina’s tentative pets, the hair doesn’t give. It’s been sprayed to stay like this, possibly forever. (p. viii)
This jaunty style is maintained throughout the book, transitioning into a more serious tone only when the author explains the political chaos that was the catalyst for her family’s migrations, or when there is personal tragedy. The story covers her childhood, teenage years and early adult years, adjusting to the differences between a crumbling soviet society and a liberal democracy.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/12/07/miss-ex-yugoslavia-by-sofija-stefanovic/… (mehr)
Well written memoir of life as a young Serbian immigrant to Australia. The book gives a rich rendition of the theme of the child migrant growing up in a new country while maintaining links, memories and loyalties to the old country. The book also gives an insight into the hearts and minds of Serbs who were appalled by Milosevic and his actions, but remained Serbian stalwarts all the same.
Stefanovic meets her elderly friend Bill at a support group for victims of online romance scams. Like many older people who venture onto dating sites, he had been targeted by a scammer, who had built up a relationship with him online before asking for money. Caught up in this fictitious relationship, Bill obliges. He was driven to the point of bankruptcy before the Queensland police realised what was happening and took steps to help. Stefanovic had thought that Bill was a success story and so, she realises that he's been dragged back into the world of the scam, she decides to look into this growing modern brand of exploitation - focusing on romance scammers. Often based in Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Ghana, scammers are amazingly sophisticated, learning as much as possible about their target in order to exploit every vulnerability or weakness. As our lives move online, and even the less experienced older generation start to experiment with online dating, their pool of contacts has exploded. Of course, this isn't just a story about technology but also about the loneliness of life as an older person in modern society: loneliness which can blind them to red flags in 'perfect' online relationships. It's an important story that deserves to be publicised.
Unfortunately I didn't feel that Stefanovic ever really gets anywhere. I enjoyed her very personal approach to her journalism, but found myself waiting in vain for the punchy climax that I was sure would wrap everything up. We watch as she tries to help Bill, doing her best to coax him into enlightenment, while he resists her efforts to puncture his fragile bubble of hope. She makes an interesting point about why people cling to these scams: even if, inwardly, they know that they're being exploited, the 'relationship' gives them a focus and an element of excitement otherwise lacking in their lives. But she doesn't get any further than this. Her efforts to get inside the heads of the scammers fails: they simply won't engage with her. And so it makes for a curiously unsatisfying little book, more like the first half of a long article: we see the gravity of the problem but don't come any closer to knowing how to tackle it.… (mehr)
Unfortunately I didn't feel that Stefanovic ever really gets anywhere. I enjoyed her very personal approach to her journalism, but found myself waiting in vain for the punchy climax that I was sure would wrap everything up. We watch as she tries to help Bill, doing her best to coax him into enlightenment, while he resists her efforts to puncture his fragile bubble of hope. She makes an interesting point about why people cling to these scams: even if, inwardly, they know that they're being exploited, the 'relationship' gives them a focus and an element of excitement otherwise lacking in their lives. But she doesn't get any further than this. Her efforts to get inside the heads of the scammers fails: they simply won't engage with her. And so it makes for a curiously unsatisfying little book, more like the first half of a long article: we see the gravity of the problem but don't come any closer to knowing how to tackle it.… (mehr)
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