Whispers of the Balkans: A Dance of Memory and Desire with Author Michele Levy

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Michele Levy, author of the book Anna's Dance. Born a Yankee in Providence, Rhode Island, after seven years in Boston, she moved with her family to Wisconsin and Northern Virginia. Then she continued the southern trend with graduate studies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and followed her Brooklyn-born husband even farther south, to New Orleans. Twenty-six years later, they traded the Superdome (seven minutes away from their house by car) for the North Carolina woods. This wandering stripped away her Boston accent, leaving a tendency to enunciate clearly that made New Orleanians think she was from England.

From the age of four she has played classical piano and read voraciously. But an exposure to Balkan dance in high school kindled what became a life-long passion. Still, her love for D. H. Lawrence and Dostoevsky led her to a PhD in Comparative Literature (English, French, Russian), and then to universities, where she taught, researched, and became a chair. Though she first published on Russian and European authors, her academic interest shifted to the Balkans. She wrote on Balkan history and literature and returned to the region (she’d first visited in 1968) in 2000, after the end of the Bosnian War, and 2002, invited by the Serbian Writers’ Association. By then she’d begun to write poetry and stories with Balkan settings. Anna’s Dance grew from her deep engagement with Balkan history and culture.

These days, she plays piano and reads, but mostly she writes. She’s working on a novel about a Bosnian asylee in New Orleans. Carolina’s nature nurtures her, she and her husband enjoy their three children and seven grandchildren, who have moved nearby, and she still does Balkan dance!

In my book review, I stated Anna's Dance: A Balkan Odyssey is a beautiful Jewish historical fiction novel. I once again found myself wondering what history I was taught in school because I knew next to nothing about Balkan history, even as it related to WWII. This book helped me fill in several gaps in my knowledge.

We meet Anna Rossi, an early 20's girl on a journey through the Balkan region. She starts out with one set of plans and moves to another, then another, and then another, finding herself learning more and more about prejudice and suffering. She sees a strong correlation to her own Jewish heritage - how minority suppression can lead to horrible end results, including violence.

As Anna travels, she grows from a silly girl to an experienced woman who knows her place in the world. Eventually, she learns to embrace her heritage and all that encompasses. I found the book to be quite beautiful in the telling and very relevant to our day.

Author Note: There are some sexual scenes - a couple that were a bit graphic for my taste. However, overall, these scenes were not gratuitous but helped the reader understand where Anna was in her journey.

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Website: www.micheleflevy.com.

FB: @mflevy

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IG: @mfrucht45

Purchase Anna's Dance on Amazon:

Paperback: https://amzn.to/4lLI8FV

Ebook: https://amzn.to/4lNRdhy

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