A Stranger's Supper: An Oral History of Centenarian Women in Montenegro

This book consists of interviews with about a dozen CENTENERIAN women (women 100+ years old!) in Montenegro compiled in 1990 by A Serb-American. One woman is a Serb muslim, the other a Catholic Albanian and there's a Muslim Albanian and the rest are Serb women. The women all think back to the Balkan Wars, WWI and WWII. This book shows what Serbs were really about at the turn of the century and what the forces that invaded Serb Montenegro (Turks, Austrians, Germans) were really like. You hear detailed stories of wars, death, hunger, torture, decapitation. You think the Balkans are a scary place on the news now? Listen to a dozen women 100+ YEARS OLD tell you about how bad it was when they were young. Only in this book, you get to hear about the cruelty inflicted ON SERBS not by Serbs for a change. Those called "Turks" are in fact Serbs whose ancestors converted to Islam, today's "Bosnian Muslims" and "Austrians" refers to Croats and these same "Turks" who - together with the Austrians descended on Serb Montenegro in WWI. The book also talks about how patriarchy made life a grueling nightmare equally for all the women: Serb, Muslim, Catholic Albanian and Muslim Albanian women. You honestly have to read it to believe that women were actually treated this way by husbands and other family members. It is the ugliest side of Balkan life told by those who experienced it personally. The women are so candid, frank and forthright that you really get into their head and sort of grasp the outdated mentality with which they saw the world until their very last days. These women were young when the greatest technological marvel their mountaineer society could ever see was the wonder that is the sowing machine. Made me so proud to be a Serb.

This is an exraordinary book that reminds women everywhere of the unbelievable struggle of our ancestors to survive. The women in this book could have been from anywhere in a different time, enduring the worst that the world had to offer, yet they emerge from these pages with a unique strength and dignity in spite of it all. I'd highly recommend this book, not simply as an athropological study, but to anyone seeking where they came from. Because this is a book about the history of us all.