I Was Born Under a Lucky Star

This book, which has for many served as a gateway into the world of the Roma, offers an incredibly authentic and detailed insight into the lives of the community in the Velký Šariš region of Slovakia, as well as into their spiritual and material culture from the 1920s to the 1980s.

Why is a wise word sometimes better than bread, what was tobacco brew used for during the war, why is it better among the Roma to be Papiňori than Kalemardo, how did a play about the wartime destiny of the Roma come to be written in the settlement, what is it like for a young family to start over in Kladno when hardly anyone understands their Šariš dialect, and why can’t even a Romani college graduate and civil servant do anything against prejudice and malice?

This narrative, offering rich insights into the ethnology and history of the Roma in Slovakia, accompanied by a photo supplement and edited by Milena Hübschmannová, was first published by Triáda in 1997.

English edition from 1998 was published as A False Dawn: My Life as a Gypsy Woman in Slovakia.