Vesna Goldsworthy: A Yugoslavian home movie

Born a Serb in communist Yugoslavia, Vesna Goldsworthy was as a young woman a well-known poet. But when she fell in love with an Englishman, she settled in London and, as a journalist for the BBC World Service, watched from afar as her country ripped itself apart.

Chernobyl Strawberries is a memoir, first begun when a diagnosis of breast cancer made her fear that her small son would never know his mother's heritage. A national broadsheet serialisation deal is confirmed for this beautifully written book, which is Atlantic's spring lead.

"When I remember my life, I don't remember some kind of unbroken life story that began in 1961 when I was born and continued to 2004. For me the interesting thing is how memories gel and combine.

"Writing has this kind of defamiliarising effect. You suddenly see your life from the outside, and I realised that my schooldays in the dog days of eastern Europe were actually quite strange. It is a world that has disappeared relatively recently, and so quickly.

"I became aware of this sort of communist kitsch. One time I had this opportunity to read a poem for our president's birthday in a stadium of about 30,000 people--it was glorious, but also quite camp. And the way things were staged, being bussed from school to the airports to stand and wave little flags at our leaders. The memories of such a different world have the quality of some strange home movie that is playing at a different speed. You think, 'Did I really do that?'

"I was a journalist at the BBC right when my country was falling apart. I had this strange sensation, particularly when the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia was going on. I kept ringing my parents every day, like some ritual; I thought if I didn't get through, something awful would happen to them. Yet it was strange--you have Nato bombing this country, yet the phone lines are open and you are still talking to these people.

"I'd watch these familiar places burn on television. The journalists were parked in Sarajevo practically all the time, taking shots of the streets, and I'd recognise people I knew as passers-by. I'd see a Muslim friend of mine crossing the road and think, 'Where is she going?'

"Exile and displacement are key themes of the book. One of the reasons why there was this gap between being a poet in Yugoslavia 20 years ago and writing a book now in English is that my English always seemed very correct and pompous to me so I always thought I would have two languages: Serbian for creativity and English for work. But with my illness I forced my English to do it, so that my son would be able to read it. I wanted him to pick up a page and somehow hear my voice."

Vesna Goldsworthy Chernobyl Strawberries (Atlantic, 10th March, h/b, £14.99, 1843544148)