After the Rain
How the West
Lost the East
The Book
This is a series of articles written and published in 1996-2000 in
Macedonia, in Russia, in Egypt and in the Czech Republic.
How the West lost the East. The economics, the politics, the
geopolitics, the conspiracies, the corruption, the old and the new,
the plough and the internet - it is all here, in colourful and
provocative prose.
From "The Mind of Darkness":
"'The Balkans' - I say - 'is the unconscious of the world'. People
stop to digest this metaphor and then they nod enthusiastically. It
is here that the repressed memories of history, its traumas and
fears and images reside. It is here that the psychodynamics of
humanity - the tectonic clash between Rome and Byzantium, West and
East, Judeo-Christianity and Islam - is still easily discernible. We
are seated at a New Year's dining table, loaded with a roasted pig
and exotic salads. I, the Jew, only half foreign to this cradle of
Slavonics. Four Serbs, five Macedonians. It is in the Balkans that
all ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevail
anachronistically and atavistically. Contradiction and change the
only two fixtures of this tormented region. The women of the Balkan
- buried under provocative mask-like make up, retro hairstyles and
too narrow dresses. The men, clad in sepia colours, old fashioned
suits and turn of the century moustaches. In the background there is
the crying game that is Balkanian music: liturgy and folk and elegy
combined. The smells are heavy with muskular perfumes. It is like
time travel. It is like revisiting one's childhood."
The Author
Sam Vaknin was born in Israel in 1961. A financial consultant and
columnist, he lived and published in 11 countries. An author of
short stories, the winner of many literary awards, an amateur
philosopher - he is a controversial figure. This is his tenth book.