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Overview
This series of thought-provoking and incisive essays from Dubravka Ugresic explores the full spectrum of human existence. From life in exile to life in prison, from bottled-water-drinking tourists with massive backpacks to the Eurovision song contest, Ugresic's sharp critical eye never fails to reveal what has been hidden in plain sight by routine or to uncover the tragic, and the comic, in the everyday.Synopsis
This series of thought-provoking and incisive essays from Dubravka Ugresic explores the full spectrum of human existence. From life in exile to life in prison, from bottled-water-drinking tourists with massive backpacks to the Eurovision song contest, Ugresic's sharp critical eye never fails to reveal what has been hidden in plain sight by routine or to uncover the tragic, and the comic, in the everyday.
The Barnes & Noble Review
In Nobody's Home (her fourth work of nonfiction to be published in this country) Dubravka Ugrešić writes, "I have been on the road ever since [1991 -- when the former Yugoslavia descended into war], changing countries like shoes."With hardly a touch of jetlag, Ugrešić's essays latch onto matters of ethnic, national, and transnational identity. In surveying topics such as her former countrymen's wont to line their conversations with curse words, or the condescension she has met with as a Croatian woman, Ugrešić lays into an assortment of au courant stereotypes (e.g., " I put up with it when people explain to me how to use an iron, or when waiters in restaurants deliberately avoid setting my place with a knife . I usually write 'cleaning lady' in the box under OCCUPATION; it's what is expected of me. Because my cosmopolitan countrywomen are known far and wide as excellent housekeepers in EU apartments, houses and public lavatories.") Abreast with this endeavor, she also looks into how globalization has affected, what the stalwarts of the Frankfurt School termed, the culture industry. For instance, in the essay "Transition: Morphs & Sliders & Polymorphs," she notes, "Only in times ruled by firm, frozen values -- political, religious, moral aesthetic, has the writer enjoyed a special status . Today, in market-oriented cultural zones -- an intellectual is simply a 'player' a performer, a circus performer, an entertainer, a vendor of 'cultural' souvenirs." Following this idea to its logical endpoint, one wonders, does the author factors herself into her own indictment? She does. While tallying the ills of civilization, Ugrešić avoids coming across as remote or above the fray. Indeed, alongside engaging in forceful cultural readings, she discourses on things like gardening and the pleasure of having one's nails done. In sum, her provocative bent is not cheapened by her unmitigated desire to please. --Christopher Byrd
Editorials
Library Journal
In her long career, Ugresic has published several novels (e.g., The Ministry of Pain), but she made her name with her essay collections, which have caused controversy and earned her the admiration of writers and critics abroad. In these latest musings, written over the course of several years, Ugresic leaves no stone unturned and no thought contained, doing what she does best: writing about the human condition through her own experience. Refusing to establish a central theme, she touches upon a wide range of topics: the paradox of multiculturalism, metaphors as our "defense against nightmares," the eerie similarities between capitalism and communism, and ways in which we try to rise hopelessly above our less-than-perfect existence. Along the way, she pays homage to the works of literature that have influenced her own creative process, in an effort to pay "a symbolic literary tax on narcissim" because "writing is not the humblest of vocations." Perhaps not, but Ugresic certainly knows how to balance being a critic with being criticized. Recommended for all libraries collecting cultural criticism.
—Mirela Roncevic