Using the true story of the Gypsy poet Papusza, Colum McCann tells the story of Zoli Novotna, a Romani, a poet, a singer and a Communist Her family was drowned by Facist guards and her grandfather was forced to flee and join a group of travelling musicians After the Second World War she became a member of a group of Communist intellectuals, among them Stephen Swann, a young English journalist who is partly the narrator of the novel