No Return Address: A Memoir of Displacement (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780231121309)

No Return Address is a vivid memoir of a life in exile and a poignant meditation on pleasure and loss, repression and transgression, and the complexities of love under harsh human conditions. In recounting her life's journey from Romania to Paris and Brussels, then on to the United States, Anca Vlasopolos writes movingly of the peculiar attributes of displacement in the contemporary world--the hyphenated, ambiguous identities; the purgatory in which immigrants await transfer to another country; the mysterious nostalgia for places and events dimly recalled. Throughout, she describes the constant search for a place to truly call home.

Vlasopolos renders a clear and loving portrait of her mother, an Auschwitz survivor courageously raising a young girl by herself after the death of her husband, a political dissident. She details their years of limbo in Brussels and Paris and of settlement in Detroit, Michigan, as well as her ultimate decision to identify the United States as home, inspired by the strong multicultural quality that allows so many others to do the same.

Author: Anca Vlasopolos
ISBN-10: 023112130X
ISBN-13: 9780231121309
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/07/2000
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 10/01/2000 pg. 116
Choice 04/01/2001 pg. 1458
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2001 pg. 173