Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is one.' Īmerican writer Brian Hall says in his book, The Impossible Country, that 'after four years of writing.and 1,100 densely packed pages.she succeeded only in representing the Serb viewpoint.' Sources Īmerican writer Larry McMurtry says in an essay that 'there are only a few great travel books.

It made the Random House Modern Library list of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. During the trip, West and her husband travelled to Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. The book details the six-week journey West made, with her husband, to Yugoslavia in 1937.

Anica Savić Rebac, under the name of Milica, appears not only as a new friend, but also as the intellectual guide who eventually reveals to Rebecca West the rituals which would lead the author to the title metaphor of her vision of the Balkans. The character of 'Constantine' is supposedly based on Stanislav Vinaver. The book's epigraph reads: 'To my friends in Yugoslavia, who are now all dead or enslaved'. Publication of the book coincided with the Nazi Invasion of Yugoslavia, and West added a foreword highly praising the Yugoslavs for their brave defiance of Germany. West's objective was 'to show the past side by side with the present it created'. The book is over 1,100 pages in modern editions and gives an account of Balkan history and ethnography during West's six-week trip to Yugoslavia in 1937. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.First US edition Cover art shows the Stari Most bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovinaīlack Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia is a travel book written by Dame Rebecca West, published in 1941 in two volumes by Macmillan in the UK and by The Viking Press in the US. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country’s history as well as its daily life.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans and the uneasy relationships among its ethnic groups. Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca West’s classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern. one of the great books of our time.” - The New Yorker

Black lamb and grey falcon book