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Sveika, Amerika: A Displaced Person Remembers
[P-SVEIKA]
by Maija Dambis Collins
ISBN: 978-1-60047-325-8
Paperback (6x9): 288 pgs.
“Sveika, Amerika!”—“Hello, Amerika!” These words were pronounced by little girl Maija, only eight years old, as their ship approached the coast of the land that was to become her second home.….But this fascinating book is a great deal more than a story of a journey. It is a psychological journey into oneself. It is a journey into the past, into the history of a ruthless period in the life of a nation....It is a journey, both physical and emotional, concerned with the search for identity....”
Zane Rozenberga, international translator,
Rīga, Luxembourg, Brussels.
“…..There are many books about newcomers in America of various times, but you can find few books which express the emotions and thoughts of a Latvian girl, who flees to America after World War II and starts her adult life far from the place she is born....The pathos of the work is to build bridges between nations and generations; and the author is a successful builder, because she has got strong material and great talent.”
Māra Cielena, author/editor,
Rīga, Latvia.
“Maija is a name endowed with patience and endurance. In a single breath I inhaled her dramatic and unpredictable life story, an open, bright “coming to age” account of an intelligent and enlightened being. Through personal detail, one encounters the pain and love Maija felt toward her lost and overtaken Latvia, while sensing the birth of feeling for her new found homeland, America....”
Akvelīna Līvmane, actress/astrologer,
Dailes Theatre, Rīga, Latvia.
“Sveika, Amerika! tells what happened many years ago, when the author together with her family was forced to escape occupation forces in the small Baltic Country—Latvia. The book has not lost its importance nowadays, vice versa. As never before, in the world at this moment there are many integration processes: people changing their country of residence, whether for political, economical or other reasons, coming to countries with disparate traditions and customs.
How to safeguard one’s identity, yet integrate within the mainstream of a foreign culture? Is that even possible? That’s the core of little-girl-growing -up, Maija’s story. Even if her life’s path was filled with difficulties, misunderstandings, and emotional trauma, it ends happily and successfully. That’s partially because Maija could even come back to her freed homeland and publish in the Latvian language her own memoir and other works. But does everything truly have a happy ending? What about stolen possibilities? Maybe living in her native environment and language would have allowed Maija to become a great Latvian author, whereas now she still thinks in English and has to have her work translated.
The book makes us think about our place in the world in geographical and fatal meaning; therefore, it will never lose its significance.”
Andra Konste, Director, Ventspils-House of International Writers and Translators (Latvia).
“Having worked with (the author) and read the script of Sveika, Amerika, as a history teacher, I know that textbooks can give plenty of information about the facts of war. What students do not get from (texts) are the feelings and experiences of people that were directly affected by war, such as (Maija’s) family. To be able to use this book with the teaching of World War II or the history of the Baltic States would be of tremendous benefit to any learner. While people are sometimes led to stereotypes of Germans, Russians, or Americans, (Maija’s) portrayal of people that helped or hurt her family displaces those stereotypes and gives a firsthand account of the goodness, and at times treachery, people have in their hearts…..”
Joshua P.Whipple,
then of Farnsworth Middle School, Guilderland, NY.
$16.95
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| Dieses Produkt haben wir am Mittwoch, 01. Juli 2009 in unseren Katalog aufgenommen. |
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