Perspective

Slavenka Drakulic is the author and main character of How We Survived Communism. She was born in Croatia in 1949 and grew up under the communist regime that ruled there until 1990. Slavenka studied comparative literature and sociology at the University in Zagreb in 1976 and wrote for Croatian magazines from 1982 to 1992, where she acquired a reputation as an expert on women's issues, particularly on feminism and the plight of women in Eastern Europe.

Slavenka is an ardent anti-communist. She believes that communism has destroyed not only the material well-being of Eastern Europe but its soul as well. Communism led the peoples of Eastern Europe to despair, uniform poverty and an inability to believe that life could be better than it was at present. As a feminist and a social democrat, Slavenka has a strong sense of social justice that pervades the book. Women are horrifically treated in Eastern Europe, even...