The Native’s Return

LAUGHING IN THE JUNGLE was a dark horse success. This book has been selected by the Book of the Month for February, which should give it an impetus and a certain amount of publicity. Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Adamic used it to revisit his home, in Jugoslavia, and to give us, in this book, a picture of that strangely composite country today. There the old world and the new meet and blend; feudal mediaevalism lives next door to a modern boom city; peasantry in the civilization of another century is ruled by a dictator and high handed. Jugoslavic replica of Capone. Nationalities with nothing in common, customs that have different roots and meanings - all this he sees and gives in chatty, anecdotal form, with the perspective of the native who has lived out of it all for so long that he sees with new eyes and at the same time interprets with sympathetic understanding. More than a travel book - this book interprets a social paradox of modern Europe. Sell to readers interested in economic and social problems of remote countries, and to those who like travel. (Kirkus Reviews)