Fictional representations of Roma

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Many fictional depictions of the Romani emphasize their supposed mystical powers. Romani often appear in fiction as nomads or a sort of supernatural Deus ex machina.

Contents 1 Literature 2 Film 3 Other media 4 References

[edit] Literature

• Walter Scott's novel Guy Mannering
• George Borrow's novels Lavengro and The Romany Rye
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem/novel Aurora Leigh, where Marian Erle is Rom.
• Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
• Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Speckled Band
• Miguel de Cervantes' novel La Gitanilla
• Bernard Ashley's novel "Johnnie's Blitz"
• Georges Bizet's opera Carmen
• Hermann Hesse's novel Narcissus and Goldmund features a Roma girl called Lisa
• Prosper Mérimée's short story "Carmen"
• Ana Castillo's novel Peel My Love Like an Onion
• Dracula by Bram Stoker features a group of Romanies working for the Count.
• Emily Brontë's novel "Wuthering Heights" describes Heathcliff as "a dark-skinned gipsy"
• Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
• The Lyre of Orpheus and The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies features major characters who maintain Romani traditions, including the care and repair of musical instruments, in modern Canada.
• Stephen King's novel Thinner includes the classic plot device of the Romani curse. It was also made into a movie.
• Romani appear in several short stories by the French writer Guy de Maupassant.
• Canadian contemporary fantasy author Charles de Lint's novel Mulengro presents a portrayal of the Romani and their cultural myths.
• Rumer Godden's children's book 'The Diddakoi' (also published as Gypsy Girl, 1972}, winner of the Whitbread Award. Adapted for television by the BBC as Kizzy.
• Montoyas y Tarantos by Saura.
• The James Bond novel (and movie) From Russia with Love set in a gypsy encampment in Turkey, features a traditional fight to the death between two gypsy girls vying for the affection of the same man.
• The novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway featured a Romani named Rafael.
• The The Adventures of Tintin comic book The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé features several Romani characters and a few Romani words. This graphic novel is very sympathetic to the Romani characters.
• A Romani character and references to Romani appear in the Otherland series of science fiction books by Tad Williams. They appear in part as nomads who disregard the borders of an advanced virtual reality cyberspace.
• Isabel Allende's novel "Zorro" features a clan of Roma who ally themselves with the titular hero in post-Napoleonic Spain.
• Colum McCann's novel Zoli, exploring the life of a fictional Slovak Romani artist
• Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy features a nomadic race called the Gyptians. Gyptians are roughly the equivalent of Gypsies in our universe, with the exception that they use narrowboats in place of caravans. Throughout the books they are portrayed as good and kindly people.
• Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series of fantasy novels includes the Tsingani, based on the Roma.
• In Paulo Coelho's novel, The Witch of Portobello, the character Athena's biological mother is a Gypsy.
• In Saki's short story 'Esme'(included in the Chronicles of Clovis), a gypsy child is devoured by a hyena.
• 1911- Saki's short story 'Esme' in 'the Chronicles of Clovis', features a degrading depiction of a gypsy child that is used to foreground the heartless nature of the English aristocrats.
• The latter half of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series features the Romani in a hugely positive light, most prominent in Being A Green Mother.
• Gypsy in Amber and Canto for a Gypsy by Martin Cruz Smith
• Star of Gypsies by Robert Silverberg is a Sci-Fi epic about the King of the Rom searching out the long lost Romany home star system.
• FightGame and FireFight by Kate Wild are teenage/ya novels with a charismatic and tough gypsy boy hero called Freedom Smith. They are thrillers with sci fi overtones.
• Tim Powers' novel The Anubis Gates features a band of gypsies led by Egyptian magicians and utilizes quite a few expressions from the Romani language.
• Much of the narrative of John Crowley's Ægypt cycle unfolds from an encounter with a gypsy fortune-teller, and revolves around the question of why people believe gypsies can tell the future.

[edit] Film

Year	Title	Country	Notes
2008	Filth and Wisdom		Ukrainian Rom lives in London
2006	Transylvania	France	Italian lives with Roma in  Romania
2006	The Indian and the Nurse	Czech Republic	Romani nurse and non-Rom in love.
2006	Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan		Lead character claims to have been Gypsy hunter, has Gypsy tears vial.
2005	Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa	Japan	Anime with Romani character Noa.
2000	Chocolat		Johnny Depp is Rom in  France.
2000	The Man Who Cried	France	Johnny Depp is Rom in  France.
1998	Black Cat, White Cat	Serbia	Romani central characters.
1997	Gadjo dilo	France	French lives with Roma in  Romania.
1996	Thinner		Man cursed by gypsies after killing one.
1988	Time of the Gypsies	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Telekinetic Rom in realistic community at home, and in  Italy.
1983	Angelo My Love		All-Romani cast; dir.: Robert Duvall.
1976	Rosy Dreams	Slovakia	Romani—non-Romani lovers, societies.
1975	A Gypsy Camp Rides Off to Heaven	Russia  Ukraine  Moldova	Free-spirited Gypsies central characters; US title: Queen of the Gypsies.
1967	I Even Met Happy Gypsies	Serbia	Realistic Romani central characters.
1965	Pearls of the Deep	Czech Republic	5 shorts − last: 24-min. Romance with Romani female lead; dir.: Jaromil Jireš.
1965	Sheriff Behind Bars	Slovakia	Among prisoners is a Rom.
1963	From Russia With Love		007 in Gypsy camp in  Turkey.
1963	Let Him Who Is without Sin...	Slovakia	Romani soldier copes with love, hate.
1947	Golden Earrings		Marlene Dietrich is Hungarian Gypsy in  Germany, other Romani characters.
1946	Caravan		American marries Gypsy in  Spain.
1944	Cry of the Werewolf		Romani werewolves.
1943	For Whom the Bell Tolls		Romani character Rafael in  Spain.
1941	The Wolf Man		Romani fortune-teller.
1938	Gypsy Love	Czech Republic	Love and jealousy in Gypsy camp.
1922	Gypsy Love	Austria	Dir.: Thomas E. Walsh.
1921	Gypsies	Czech Republic	Count's son brought up by Gypsies.
1921	Jánošík	Slovakia	Romani woman helps capture hero.
1918	Carmen	Germany	Pola Negri is Carmen; dir.: E. Lubitsch.
1915	Carmen		Dir.: Cecil B. DeMille.
1908	Drama in a Gypsy Camp	Russia	2-minute scripted story.
1897	A Camp of Zingari Gypsies		1-min. document, Roma in  Hungary.

[edit] Other media

• The Chilean telenovela Romané features the life of the Romani in the north of Chile.
• Roma characters are frequently depicted in werewolf films, including Maleva the fortuneteller (Maria Ouspenskaya) in The Wolf Man and the Roma clan of female werewolves in Cry of the Werewolf.
• In 2002 the WB television series Charmed aired the episode "The Eyes Have It" which explained Gypsies to be distant relatives to modern day witches. Much like the star witches in the series Gypsies possess supernatural powers and pass down family Books of Shadows.
• On the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gypsies in 19th Century Romania place a curse on the vampire Angelus to punish him for the murder of a Roma little girl, by restoring his human soul (and by extension, his conscience) and forcing him to feel guilt for his crimes. Angel was doomed to misery until he could enjoy a moment of happiness.
• The videogame Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King features Roma characters Kalderasha, named after the Kalderash, and his daughter Valentina.
• In The Andy Griffith Show, episode 183 in the sixth season is titled "The Gypsies". A family of Gypsies (one of whom is played by Jamie Farr) places a curse on the town of Mayberry.
• In the Star Wars New Jedi Order series of books, the Ryn race are inspired by the Roma.
• A 2007 episode of the television series House features a Rom patient and family.
• In Train de Vie, a group of fleeing Jews meet up with a large group of Roma.
• In the Horror Role-Playing Game Vampire:The Masquerade, the Ravnos clan has Rom roots.
• Meggan of the Marvel comics superhero team Excalibur was born to a band of Roma in England. She was expelled when they saw that she was a shapeshifter, and believed her to be a demon.
• In the anime Cowboy Bebop, the character Faye Valentine claims to be one of the Roma people, though this is later dispelled through her own personal flashbacks.
• In the Batman series of comics, the character Richard Grayson (a.k.a Robin and Nightwing) is shown to be of Romani descent.
• While the canonical origin of the supervillain Doctor Doom has varied over the decades, he is usually of the Roma people, and was driven to his nominally villainous actions as a response to the persecution of his family. As dictator of the fictional nation of Latveria, Doom has taken a special interest in the welfare of Gypsies, as that is his heritage, and often that race is first to be taken care of in a manner similar to Saddam Hussein showering his Tikriti tribe with benefits.
• In the HBO series Carnivale, the characters of Sophie and her mother Apollonia are said to be Roma.
• In the web comic The Science Table Comic, Alex, one of the recurring characters, is a gypsy and is adorned in what is stated by another character as his "Traditional native garbs."
• In Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock, the sentient anthropomorchi Trash Heap refers to herself as a 'gypsy Trash Heap' when she performs her only act of magic.
• Twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver respectively, of Marvel Comics are of Romani ancestry through their biological mother Magda and raised in the fictional Mount Wundagore. During Marvels Mystic Arcana the Scarlet Witch was one of the prominently featured mystic characters and depicted her Romani childhood and her encounter with other Marvel mystical characters.
• In the book "The Red Necklace" written by Sally Gardner, the protagonist is a Roma teen who has magical powers.
• In the videogame Psychonauts, a rival gypsy circus curses the main character's family to die in water.

[edit] References