| Dubravka Ugrešić | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 March 1949 Kutina, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia |
| Occupation | writer |
| Nationality | Croatian |
| Notable award(s) | Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1999) |
Dubravka Ugrešić pronounced [dǔbraːʋka ǔgre̞ʃit͡ɕ] (born 27 March 1949) is a Croatian writer who lives in the Netherlands.
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Ugrešić was born in 1949 in Kutina, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia.[1] Her mother is a Bulgarian from Burgas who emigrated to Yugoslavia at age 19, in the wake of World War II.[2] Ugrešić studied Comparative Literature and Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, pursuing parallel careers as a scholar of the humanities and as a writer.[3]
Her best-known novel in former Yugoslavia was Štefica Cvek u raljama života (Steffie in the Jaws of Life), an ironic postmodernist novel freely playing with clichés and stereotypes of trivial literature and culture. It follows a young typist named Steffie Speck, whose name was taken from a Dear Abby column, as she searches for love, both parodying and being compelled by the kitschy elements of romance.[4] Ugrešić called the novel her "biggest literary achievement... because of the way in which the hero of the novel defeats its author."[4] The novel was an immediate success and made into a 1984 movie U raljama života directed by Rajko Grlić.
Ugrešić's writing has been described as accessible, intelligent, innovative and politically and emotionally charged. She calls her highly referential style "patchwork."[4] In her view,
...great literary pieces are great because, among other things, they are in permanent polemics with their readers, some of whom are writers, and who are able to themselves express creatively their sense of this literary affair. Great literary pieces have that specific magical quality of provoking readers to rewrite them, to make a new literary project out of them. That could be the Borgesian idea that each book should have its counterpart, but also a Modernist idea of literature which is in constant dialogue with its literary, historical past.[4]
In 1989, Ugrešić joined the Association for a Democratic Yugoslav Initiative. After the outbreak of the war in 1991 in former Yugoslavia, Ugrešić took a firm anti-war and anti-nationalistic stand. She wrote critically about nationalism, the stupidity and criminality of war, and soon became a target of state controled media. She was proclaimed a “traitor”, a “public enemy” and a “witch”.[5] She left Croatia in 1993 after a series of public media attacks.[3]
Ugrešić lives in Amsterdam as a freelance writer.[3] She occasionally teaches at American and European Universities and writes for some European newspapers and literary journals.
Ugresic has received several literary awards and international recognition for her writing.
In the former Yugoslavia she was awarded the NIN Prize in 1988 for Forsiranje romana reke,[3] being the first female writer (out of four in total, as of 2010[update]) to win this prize since it was established in 1954.
Other regional awards are the Meša Selimović award, the K.Š. Gjalski award, etc.