Miss Ex-Yugoslavia

A Memoir

By: Sofija Stefanovic

Narrated by: Sofija Stefanovic

A “funny and tragic and beautiful in all the right places” (Jenny Lawson, #1 New York Times bestseller author of Furiously Happy) memoir about the immigrant experience and life as a perpetual fish-out-of-water, from the acclaimed Serbian-Australian storyteller.

Sofija Stefanovic makes the first of many awkward entrances in 1982, when she is born in socialist Yugoslavia. The circumstances of her birth (a blackout, gasoline shortages, bickering parents) don’t exactly get her off to a running start. While around her, ethnic tensions are stoked by totalitarian leaders with violent agendas, Stefanovic’s early life is filled with Yugo rock, inadvisable crushes, and the quirky ups and downs of life in a socialist state.

As the political situation grows more dire, the Stefanovics travel back and forth between faraway, peaceful Australia, where they can’t seem to fit in, and their turbulent homeland, which they can’t seem to shake. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia collapses into the bloodiest European conflict in recent history.

Featuring warlords and beauty queens, tiger cubs and Baby-Sitters Clubs, Sofija Stefanovic’s memoir is a window to a complicated culture that she both cherishes and resents. Revealing war and immigration from the crucial viewpoint of women and children, Stefanovic chronicles her own coming-of-age, both as a woman and as an artist. Refreshingly candid, poignant, and illuminating, “Stefanovic’s story is as unique and wacky as it is important” (Esquire).

wonderful glimpse into a unique experience

I loved the narrator/author's voice. It was a pleasure hearing her story as I was driving. Her perspective was both unique and informative to me. At the end, I felt like I went on a journey with her and I was better for the experience.

loved her raw honest account of her life

My father is Serbian, and I married a Serbian man. My heart has always wanted to know more. Yes, my two manly Serbs can tell me their male perspectives, but Sofija's was the accounting that filled my searching heart up. Her memoir made me laugh and cry.

Her stories were the ones my heart was search for. And I want more! We need more female voices from the Balkans, tellings that are raw and honest, and introspective. Bravo!

will definitely be watching for anything this author puts out.

Real and relatable

I love that she goes into the story of the Break up of Yugoslavia from a Child‘s Point of view and all the confusion and pain that comes with it. Adults find that conflict/series of conflicts confusing and painful and hearing it from her helped me accept that I just could never wrap my Head around it. We owe her a huge thank You for sharing her intimate thoughts and love of her Family with us. I loved the Book and especially that she reads it to us.