Fabled, feared, romanticized, and reviled, the Gypsies-or Roma- are among the least understood people on earth. Now a diaspora of twelve million, 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; and, most recently, evicted from their settlements by nationalists mobs throughout the new "democracies" of Eastern Europe. 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.