Ten women, one hundred years old or more, offer a rare look inside the traditional tribal culture of Montenegro through interviews with Zorka Milich, a descendant of Montenegrins and a fluent speaker of their Serbian language. Milich's ease with the women of the country of her parents' birth makes possible intimate and lively conversation where shyness and reserve with outsiders are the norm. They talk about their relationship with their husbands, their experience of childbirth, the pain of losing a son to war and not being able to grieve openly. And they give eyewitness accounts of historic events -- the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II -- as they played themselves out in this remote and barren country the Montenegrins call Crna Gora, or Black Mountain.

This used hardcover book arrived to me in good condition, with an intact dustcover.

I got this because I wanted something from Montenegro for the Olympic Challenge in which I read something from each country participating in the 2008 Summer Olympics (which begins today). But I left it sitting on my shelf until the last minute (I thought it looked dull) and just finished it today - the last book in this marathon of around the world reading!

My trepidation was misplaced. In addition to the interviews, the book has some comments on the author's journey to the birth land of parents, and her perspectives on the culture. She's a university professor but doesn't get overly scholarly.

My main complaint was that since she asked essentially the same questions of each woman, it got a bit repetitive. The variations in their answers were interesting and illuminating, but I would have preferred some additional subjects be covered. I was glad to find that she interviewed women from different regions and religions.

Edited to note that we're making a mini-ray of this. I'm sending to blackwidow1971, and she will send to hendertuckian.

Received safely yesterday - I'm very much looking forward to reading this one.

Interesting but I would agree with the comments above about the interviews being a bit repetitive. I also found the lengthy introduction quite heavy going. I felt very sorry for these women - their lives were so hard. I would rather have been one of the Muslim women they complained about, who were shut away - these poor women were treated as inferiors just as much, but still expected to work hard in the fields too! And give birth (preferably only to sons) without complaining, in a barn!

I must now fess up to my guilt. I had completely forgotten I was supposed to read this quickly and send on to Hendertuckian. Not only have I kept it over a year, I have already sent it on to KatrinaT for her Olympic Challenge 2012. I am so sorry. Will PM Hendertuckian and grovel.

This arrived today, I will post it back at the end of the week when I can next get to the post office. I looks good though as I've added it to my amazon wishlist but it costs nearly £30 second hand, so I may be seeing if the next reader is generous and considers sending this back my way some time in the future

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On its way back

this is back with me again. Hopefully i.ll get it read in the next month and back on its travels xx

Will post out Monday, sorry for the delay

Received back safely by my mum while I was away in India - will send to Hendertuckian soon (hope it's worth the wait....)