A masterful work of personal reportage, this volume is also a vibrant portrait of a mysterious people and an essential document of a disappearing culture. Fabled, feared, romanticized, and reviled, the Gypsies—or Roma—are among the least understood people on earth. Their culture remains largely obscure, but in Isabel Fonseca they have found an eloquent witness. In Bury Me Standing, alongside unforgettable portraits of individuals—the poet, the politician, the child prostitute—Fonseca offers sharp insights into the humor, language, wisdom, and taboos of the Roma. She traces their exodus out of India 1,000 years ago and their astonishing history of persecution: enslaved by the princes of medieval Romania; massacred by the Nazis; forcibly assimilated by the communist regimes; evicted from their settlements in Eastern Europe, and most recently, in Western Europe as well. Whether as handy scapegoats or figments of the romantic imagination, the Gypsies have always been with us—but never before have they been brought so vividly to life. Includes fifty black and white photos.

Discusses the historical origins, beliefs, arts, family life, cultural clashes with white Europeans, and future hopes of the nomadic Rom, or Roma, people who were once called Gypsies.

"Deep in the Polynesian islands of the Pacific Ocean, hungry spirits circle the homes of writer Robert Louis Stevenson and artist Paul Gauguin, who lived and died on the islands only a few years apart." "Stevenson has spent thirty years in rigorous combat with the Grim Reaper, but is he finally ready to concede defeat? Gauguin has bought rum, arsenic and morphine for his suicide cocktail and is certain he's not long for this world, but he'll be damned if they give him a Catholic burial in consecrated ground. As their final hours approach, they face the eternal question: is it how we prepare for death that really governs the way we live?" --Book Jacket.

Fifteen-year-old Freedom Smith is a fighter, just like all of his relatives who have the "Hercules gene, " which leads him to a choice between being jailed for attempted murder or working with a covert law enforcement agency to break up a mysterious, illegal fight ring.