This extract is taken from the still unpublished manuscript of the Romani version of Matéo Maximoff’s second book Le prix de la liberté. The author himself translated the novel into his native language (Kalderash Romani). Even though Putin t’aves skepime was finished in May 1982, it has not yet been possible to publish it, just as Thomas A. Acton’s translation from French into English, The Price of Freedom, which was done between 1980 and 1983, still awaits publication.

Now extracts of these two versions are presented together with the French text on RomArchive for the first time.

The first edition of Le prix de la liberté was published in Paris in 1955, and the German translation Der Preis der Freiheit appeared in Zurich in the same year.

(translation by Susanne Costa)

Literature

Maximoff, Matéo. 1955. Le prix de la liberté. Paris: Flammarion.

Maximoff, Matéo. 1955. Der Preis der Freiheit. Roman. Zürich: Morgarten.

Maximoff, Matéo. 1982. Putin t’aves skepime. Romainville: unpublished typescript, 154 pages.

Maximoff, Matéo. [s.a.]. The Price of Freedom for a Gypsy Slave, translated by Thomas Acton. [s.l.]: unpublished typescript, [185 pages].

Maximoff, Matéo. 1996. Le prix de la liberté. Châteauneuf-les-Martigues: Wallâda.