A Muzzle for Witches

Novelist and essayist Ugrešić (The Culture of Lies), who died in 2023, delivers an incisive critique of the nationalist and patriarchal literary establishment that arose in Croatia following the 1992 dissolution of Yugoslavia. Presented as an interview with critic Merima Omeragić , the treatise tackles such subjects as the subversiveness of children’s fiction. Ugrešić argues that the absurdity and irony found throughout young people’s literature undermine the “pomposity” and “imprimatur of the grand” associated with national literary canons. She excoriates former Croatian president Franjo Tuđman , who spearheaded the post-Yugoslav “cultural libricide” in which non-Croatian literature was purged from libraries, and refutes the belief held by “cultural conservatives” that “only through one’s national literature is it possible to come to world literature,” explaining how she instead paved her own path to the international stage through defiance and subversion. (Ugrešić ’s insistence on identifying as Yugoslav rather than Croatian, as well as her feminist novels, caused the media to brand her as a “witch.”) Ugrešić expresses a refreshing commitment to the “invisible” space of literature where the participation of one great reader is enough to provide fulfillment. Lovers of international literature will be energized by this bracing tonic. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. (Sept.)