Dubravka Ugrešić (Croatian: [dûbraːvka ûgreʃit͡ɕ]; 27 March 1949 – 17 March 2023) was a writer from Yugoslavia, Croatia, and the Netherlands. She graduated from the University of Zagreb and lived in Amsterdam since 1996. She continued to see herself as a writer from Yugoslavia.

Early life and education

Ugrešić was born on March 27, 1949, in Kutina, Yugoslavia (now Croatia). She was born into a family with different ethnic backgrounds; her mother was an ethnic Bulgarian from Varna. She studied comparative literature and the Russian language at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Arts. During this time, she worked as both a scholar and a writer. After graduating, she continued her work at the university and at the Institute for Theory of Literature. In 1993, she left Croatia for political reasons. She later taught at several European and American universities, including UNC-Chapel Hill, UCLA, Harvard University, Wesleyan University, and Columbia University. She lived in Amsterdam, where she worked as a freelance writer and contributed articles to many American and European literary magazines and newspapers.

Writing

Dubravka Ugrešić wrote novels and short story collections. One of her novellas, Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life (Croatian: Štefica Cvek u raljama života), was published in 1981. This work includes references to famous books by authors like Gustave Flaubert and Bohumil Hrabal, as well as to less serious genres such as romance novels and chick lit. The story follows a young typist named Steffie Speck, whose name came from a "Dear Abby" column. She searches for love, and the book both mocks and reflects the exaggerated style of romance stories. The novel was adapted into a 1984 Yugoslav film titled In the Jaws of Life, directed by Rajko Grlić.

Ugrešić’s novel Fording the Stream of Consciousness won the NIN Award in 1988, which was the top literary prize in former Yugoslavia. Winners of this award include Danilo Kiš and Milorad Pavić. Ugrešić was the first woman to receive it. The book is a thriller-style story about a group of international writers who meet at a conference in Zagreb during the Yugoslavian era. Museum of Unconditional Surrender is a novel about the sadness of remembering and forgetting. It features a female narrator who is an exile, living in post-Wall Berlin and recalling her war-torn homeland, Yugoslavia. She shifts between past and present memories.

Set in Amsterdam, Ministry of Pain describes the lives of people who have been displaced. In Baba Yaga Laid An Egg, part of the Canongate Myth Series, Ugrešić uses the Slavic myth of Baba Yaga to create a modern fairy tale. The story explores issues like gender inequality and discrimination.

Ugrešić’s writing avoids simple or narrow interpretations. Her collection Have A Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream (Croatian: Američki fikcionar) includes short, essay-like pieces that describe everyday life in America, seen from the perspective of someone whose country is in crisis. The Culture of Lies is a book of essays about ordinary people’s lives during times of war, nationalism, and fear. Richard Byrne of Common Review said her writing criticizes the senseless cruelty of war, challenges the exaggerated heroism often shown in war stories, and explores the pain of being an exile. Thank You For Not Reading is a collection of essays about topics like publishing, literature, and the role of writing.

Ugrešić received many awards for her essays, including the Charles Veillon Prize, Heinrich Mann Prize, and Jean Amery Prize. In the United States, her book Karaoke Culture was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Ugrešić was also a literary scholar who wrote articles about Russian avant-garde literature and a book titled Nova ruska proza (New Russian Fiction, 1980). She edited books such as Pljuska u ruci (A Slap in the Hand) and nine volumes of Pojmovnik ruske avangarde (Glossary of Russian Avant-Garde). She translated works by Russian writers like Boris Pilnyak and Daniil Kharms into Croatian. She also wrote three books for children.

Politics and exile

At the start of the war in former Yugoslavia in 1991, Ugrešić strongly opposed the war and nationalism. She wrote about the dangers of nationalism, the foolishness and harm caused by war, and became a target of some Croatian media, writers, and public figures. People accused her of not supporting her country and called her a "traitor," a "public enemy," and a "witch." In 1993, she left Croatia after facing many public attacks and because she could not live with the constant spread of lies in politics, culture, and daily life. She wrote about the dangers of nationalist excitement in her book The Culture of Lies and described her personal experiences in an essay called The Question of Perspective (Karaoke Culture). She continued to write about the problems in modern societies, such as how media, politics, religion, and shared beliefs can make people think the same way (Europe in Sepia). As someone who lived in a broken country, she was interested in the challenges of being in exile, a situation described by writer J. Brodsky. Her novels, Ministry of Pain and The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, explore the pain of being in exile as well as the freedom it can bring. Her essay Writer in Exile (Thank You for Not Reading) offers advice for writers living in exile. She described herself as "post-Yugoslav, transnational, or, more specifically, postnational."

In 2017, she signed a statement called the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins.

Literary awards

• 1988 – NIN Award (Annual award for the best new novel from Yugoslavia) (Yugoslavia)
• 1996 – Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon (Annual award for the best European book of essays) (Switzerland)
• 1997 – Verzetsprijs 1997, Stichting Kunstenaarsverzet 1942–1945 (Artists in Resistance Prize) (Netherlands)
• 1998 – SWF-Bestenliste Literaturpreis (Sud-West-Funk Bestlist Literary Award) (Germany)
• 1998 – Austrian State Prize for European Literature (Austria)
• 2000 – Heinrich Mann Prize from the Akademie Der Kunste Berlin (Germany)
• 2004 – Premio Feronia-Città di Fiano (Italy)
• 2006 – Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (United Kingdom)
• 2009 – Nominated for the Man Booker International Prize (United Kingdom)
• 2010 – James Tiptree Jr. Award for Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (United States)
• 2011 – Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards in the Criticism category for Karaoke Culture: Essays (United States)
• 2012 – Jean-Améry-Prize for European Essays (Austria/Germany)
• 2016 – Neustadt International Prize for Literature (United States)
• 2016 – Vilenica International Literary Festival Prize (Slovenia)
• 2021 – Royal Society of Literature International Writer

Selected bibliography in English translation

• Poza za prozu (1978). A Pose for Prose
• Štefica Cvek u raljama života (1981). Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life
• Život je bajka (1983). Life Is a Fairy Tale
• Forsiranje romana reke (1988). Fording the Stream of Consciousness, translated by Michael Henry Heim (Virago, 1991; Northwestern University Press, 1993)
• Američki fikcionar (1993). American Fictionary, translated by Celia Hawkesworth and Ellen Elias-Bursác (Open Letter, 2018); revised translation of Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream, translated by Celia Hawkesworth (Jonathan Cape, 1994; Viking, 1995)
• Kultura laži (1996). The Culture of Lies, translated by Celia Hawkesworth (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998; Penn State University Press, 1998)
• Muzej bezuvjetne predaje (1997). The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, translated by Celia Hawkesworth (Phoenix House, 1998; New Directions, 2002)
• Zabranjeno čitanje (2002). Thank You for Not Reading, translated by Celia Hawkesworth and Damion Searls (Dalkey Archive, 2003)
• Ministarstvo boli (2004). The Ministry of Pain, translated by Michael Henry Heim (SAQI, 2005; Ecco Press, 2006)
• Nikog nema doma (2005). Nobody’s Home, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursác (Telegram/SAQI, 2007; Open Letter, 2008)
• Baba Jaga je snijela jaje (2007). Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursác, Celia Hawkesworth, and Mark Thompson (Canongate, 2009; Grove Press, 2010)
• Karaoke kultura (2011). Karaoke Culture, translated by David Williams (Open Letter, 2011)
• Europa u sepiji (2013). Europe in Sepia, translated by David Williams (Open Letter, 2014)
• Lisica (2017). Fox, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursác and David Williams (Open Letter, 2018)
• Doba kože (2019). The Age of Skin, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursác (Open Letter, 2020)
• Brnjica za vještice (2021). A Muzzle for Witches, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursác (Open Letter, 2024)

• In the Jaws of Life, translated by Celia Hawkesworth and Michael Henry Heim (Virago, 1992). This collection includes the novella Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life, the short story collection Life Is a Fairy Tale (1983), and the stories "A Love Story" (from the 1978 collection Poza za prozu) and "The Kharms Case" (1987). It was later republished as In the Jaws of Life and Other Stories (Northwestern University Press, 1993) and again as Lend Me Your Character (Dalkey Archive, 2005), with the translation revised by Damion Searls and "A Love Story" removed. The 2005 edition was republished by Open Letter Books in 2023, adding two new stories: "How to Ruin Your Own Heroine" and "Button, Button Who's Got the Button?", translated by Ellen Elias-Bursác.