Dubravka Ugrešić

Dubravka Ugrešić (born 1949), Yugoslavia, The Netherlands, Germany, Croatia.

Dubravka Ugrešić is another author with a second life as a scholar; she has numerous and very respected publications on the literary culture of the Russian avant-garde and similar topics, and some distinguished literary translations (of Russian absurdist poet Daniil Kharms, and others). Born in Croatia, Yugoslavia, in an ethnically mixed family, she worked for many years at the Institute for the Theory of Literature at the University of Zagreb. In 1993 she left Croatia for political reasons and has divided her time since then between Europe (Holland, Berlin) and a variety of academic or creative writing positions in the United States (at (at Wesleyan University, UCLA, UNC Chapel Hill…).

Ugrešić’s first book of creative prose was Poza za prozu (A Pose for Prose); her delightful “pattern-novel,”Štefica Cvek u raljama života (Celia Hawkesworth renders this elegantly as Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life), was adapted for the stage and made into a very popular Yugoslav film. Forsiranje romana reke (Fording the Stream of Consciousness, originally published in 1988) is the last major work in what one might call Ugrešić’s “pre-war” style: it is playful and light despite its erudition and thoughtfulness. This reader notes that Ugresic always seems to have foreseen every possible reaction of her reader -— or at least to be several steps ahead of her reader. Since 1991 and Americki fikcionar (literally “An American Fictionary,” published in Celia Hawkesworth’s translation as Have a Nice Day, 1995), Ugresic has developed different authorial personae, some of them much less intellectually playful or flippant, and some drawing on the ambiguous but familiar and effective position of the Socialist-era dissident. In this role she has been even more prolific than before, and her creative prose and journalism are now widely published in translation.

Some of the publication dates for Ugrešić are misleading, since after 1991 she might have published her journalistic pieces first as individual features in Dutch, and some of her English translations appeared before the “original” editions in Zagreb or Belgrade.

In The Museum of Unconditional Surrender (Muzej bezuvjetne predaje) Ugrešić follows on a large body of passionately engaged journalism with a strong autobiographical bent, sometimes revisiting very similar stories, but it is already a novel, thus comparable to Vrkljan’s The Silk, the Shears and Marina.

Course book: The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, translated by Celia Hawkesworth.

Questions for reading:

• As ever, how much do you know about the setting(s) of this book? How much does the author teach you; how much does she assume you already know? (If you don’t already know, how do you react to the book’s events and characters?) How does she win your trust for her position of authority?
• Pay attention to your own work and preferences as you assemble the pieces of the book, and the affect of changes of topic or interrupted narration.
• Ugrešić’s early fiction operated in an atmosphere of pervasive irony; what is the role of irony in this book?
• How does your perception of the authorial persona(e) evolve as you read?
• What are the first implications of the title, and how does your interpretation of it change as you read?
• Where, in your perception, might there be shifts and overlaps between historical reportage, the always subjective truth of personal experience, and elements of fiction? What issues does that question raise for the genre of autobiography?

Other books by Ugrešić:

• Baba Jaga je snijela jaje, 2008. Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać, 2009.
• Kultura laži: Antipolitički eseji, 1996. The Culture Of Lies: Antipolitical Essays, translated by Celia Hawkesworth, 1998, available in Tripod.
• Forsiranje romana reke, 1988. Fording the Stream of Consciousness, translated by Michael Henry Heim, 1993, available in Tripod.
• Američki fikcionar, 1993. Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream, translated by Celia Hawkesworth, 1994, available in Tripod.
• Ministarstvo boli, 2004. The Ministry of Pain, translated by Michael Henry Heim, 2006.
• Nikog nema doma, 2005. Nobody’s Home: Essays, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać, 2008.
• Štefica Cvek u raljama života, 1981. With other earlier works as In The Jaws Of Life, translated by Celia Hawkesworth and Michael Henry Heim, 1993, available in Tripod.
• Zabranjeno čitanje, 2001. Thank You for Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia, translated by Celia Hawkesworth with Damien Searles, 2003, available in Tripod.

Works about Ugrešić or with a connection to her:

• Julie Mertus. The Suitcase, available in Tripod.
• Joanna Labon. Balkan Blues: Writing out of Yugoslavia, available in Tripod.
• W. L. Webb. Rose Bell. An Embarrassment of Tyrannies, available in Tripod.
• Ammu Joseph. Kalpana Sharma. Terror, Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out, available in Tripod.

Web links about Ugrešić:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ugresicd/jaws.htm

On The Jaws of Life, from The Complete Review, with lots of links

http://www.artmargins.com/content/review/kuhlman1.html

Martha Kullman on The Culture of Lies and The Museum of Complete Surrender

http://www.thesusijnagency.com/authors/ugresic.htm

Reviews and blurbs on several of her more recent books

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.595/review-1.595

Tatyana Pavlovic’s review from Postmodern Culture of Fording the Stream of Consciousness and The Jaws of Life

http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_02_001511.php

An interview from Bookslut on Thank You for Not Reading