The Name

I was named Dragana.

It is a Serbian name and it comes from the same root as draga— dear. It means dear one. It means beloved. 

Between people who love each other, it is used to mean my love.

My mother wrote it on a form in a mud house in October 1968, four days after she looked at my eyes and thought about another man and said nothing.

My father was handed it at a prison gate, in a blanket, on the day he was released.

In September 1992 I stood in the rain outside a Greek restaurant in London with a hundred and twenty pounds and no coat, and a man asked me my name.

I said: Call me Anna. With two n’s, please.

I have called that freedom for thirty-three years. I am not certain any more that it was.

Londoner by Choice. British by Mentality. Serbian by Resilience.