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Article: Among the Gypsies.
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- May 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SATURDAY NIGHT and I'm the guest on Charlie Gillett's BBC London radio show. Charlie's invited me along to discuss my book Princes Amongst Men: Journeys with Gypsy Musicians, which documents my travels among Romani communities in four Balkan nations. We're playing radio ping-pong, Charlie choosing the theme music to Emir Kusturica's film Time of the Gypsies while I opt for the high, haunted voice of Dona Dumitru Siminica, a Romanian Gypsy musician whose enigmatic music and life (and death) qualifies him as the Balkan equivalent to legendary Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson. "These tunes we're spinning," I say to Charlie, "they're so eerie, quite otherworldly. Hard to ...