Forbidden Bread: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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"Forbidden Bread" is a memoir written by Erica Johnson Debeljak about her decision to turn her life upside down and move to a new country. At the core of the memoir is the unlikely love story between the author, an American financial analyst living in New York City, and, Ales, the bohemian womanizing Slovenian poet who catches her heart without really meaning to. Though Debeljak's calling takes her far from her native country, her choices represent universal themes: family, culture, language, and what it means to belong to a specific place. The story begins in New York but soon migrates, along with its author, to Slovenia. As the author tries to forge an identity in her new home, she discovers to her dismay that Slovenia itself is struggling to decide who and what it is in a rapidly changing world. She invites the reader along as she tangles with Slovenia's not quite defunct communist bureaucracy, with its impossibly complicated language, its politically incorrect ethnic jokes, and the material egalitarianism that coexists with old-fashioned sexism. She comes to love her husband's family and the fast disappearing rural traditions of the beautiful little land. All of this takes place against the backdrop of the appalling Yugoslav wars of succession.

Reviews

Forbidden Bread is a sunny, can-do look at intense culture shock. Debeljak makes a humorous, self-effacing guide to her own story and the only complaint I have is that I wish shed told us more. I hope someday she gives us a sequel.
Christian Science Monitor

"[Forbidden Bread is] a touching record of the mores of a country that remains a strange, unknown land to most Western readers. Witty and warm."
Kirkus Reviews

[Debeljaks] memoir functions as a love letter to her husband and an introduction to the Slovenian world, its language, social customs and tangled history (Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia, officially became a nation-state in 1991)... [T]he author offers an intriguing story about the birth of a new state as well as the series of coincidences, mishaps, and thunderbolts that led [her] from Brooklyn to Ljubljana.
Publishers Weekly

Erica Johnson Debeljak takes us on a journey of love to, of all places, Slovenia. Her story is at once adventurous, romantic, and humorous . . . Along the way are many eye-opening tours of a place that is both as enchanting and absurd as Peter Mayles Provence.
Amy Wallen, author of MoonPies and Movie Stars

Out of a clash of cultures comes a book of wit and fascinating observations. Forbidden Bread says as much about the United States as it does about Slovenia. Informative and often funny, it opens a window onto a world of drastic differences and surprising similarities.
Slavenka Drakulic, author of How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

With an observant eye and intelligent cultural insights, Erica Johnson Debeljak leads the reader through her story of leaving New York to marry a black-haired Slavic poet. I learned much about the region that was once Yugoslavia and I learned it in the best possible waythrough an engaging and well-told story. She is a delightful narrator and an entertaining guide.
Judith Barrington, author of Lifesaving

Erica Johnson Debeljak has written a witty and lyrical memoir, filled with deep love for her adopted country and Slovenian family. Whether she's explaining what "forbidden bread" means or why tending graves is a passionate national pastime or rebelling against na iroko (a form of triple diapering), she writes with exuberance and depth.
Shelf Awareness

"[Erica Johnson Debeljak] uses her own story as the backdrop for Slovenia's story, with its tumultuous history and rich, poetry-filled culture. From her battles with power-abusing bureaucrats, to worries about bombs falling on her wedding day, to ethnic jokes and fussing in-laws, Debeljak provides layers of detail that let the reader really understand what it would be like to live in a land so foreign. This is arm-chair travel at its besta trip to the true heart of a country."
The Internet Review of Books

Part a reverse mail-order bride story, part a history/geography lesson, and part a family account, Forbidden Bread is above all a tribute to the lengths people go to for love.
LuxuryReading.com

Author Bio

Erica Debeljak lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia with her husband Ales and her three children. Born in San Francisco in 1961, she moved to New York City where she attended college and graduate school before pursuing a career in international finance. In 1991, she fell in love with Ales Debeljak, quit her job to make a new life in a new country. Unable to pursue her career in Slovenia where bureaucratic hurdles blocked the way, she learned the language, became a Slovenian/English translator, and eventually took up work as a writer and columnist. Her essays and stories have recently appeared in Glimmer Train (winner of 2007 Family Matters Contest), Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, Nimrod, Epoch, Common Knowledge, Context, and Eurozine. Her work has been translated into over five languages. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans and has published three books in Slovenia, including Foreigner in the House of Natives.