Next to God, America

For several years in the late 1990s, Rumena Bužarovska lived in Phoenix, Arizona. More than two decades later, she returned to revisit that world and see how much it had changed. Her world? Yes—the world of her childhood, tethered to her by vivid memories and unmistakable scents. The result of that return is the book Next to God, America.

Formally, it is a hybrid work—a blend of memoir and personal essay, travelogue and story. Structured as a journal-like narrative, it traces her journey through the American South, from Arizona to Key West at the southern tip of Florida, and briefly north to Georgia, in a ritual visit to the farm once home to Flannery O’Connor—the American writer Bužarovska has translated into Macedonian.

Written with wit and urgency, this work of Americana stands among the finest of its kind. In the spirit of Joan Didion’s essays, Bužarovska examines the cultural and political contradictions of contemporary America with a sharp, unflinching Macedoniian, or more broadly, Balkan gaze, one that is free of illusions about the world we live in today.

Semezdin Mehmedinović
The book was originally written in English as Next to God, America and then translated into Macedonian by the author. For the English version, contact the author and/or her representatives.