Dubravka Ugrešić. The Writer and Deterritorialized Literature

Abstract

Dubravka Ugrešić defines herself as a transnational writer. Her political, geographic and cultural dislocation constitute the main themes of her prose works written in the last decade of the twentieth century. In the subsequent decade, Ugrešić’s essays took on additional themes relating to the European literary market. The author follows reading fashions and examines the shape and function of publications defined as European or world bestsellers. As a writer and scholar she is drawn to the concept of the transcultural, whose distinguishing characteristic she finds to be the experience of a new and faster mode of transfer of information and goods. The poetics of the work, however, will not be disturbed or changed. Similarly, the hierarchy established by the history and criticism of literature, setting the boundaries of culture and referred to with irony by Ugrešić in her reading of bestsellers, remains intact. This author-reader who seeks to understand her fellow readers often changes the paradigm she uses to describe culture.  In her examination of the relations between author, work, and receiver, she delineates an emerging karaoke culture. It cannot, however, be designated as a transnational literature or culture. The literature created by Ugrešić eludes definition in a similar way. Analyses conducted in the text demonstrate that with regard to Ugrešić’s work, the term “from outside” would function as a more correct label than the prefix “trans.” It should be understood, however, as defining the condition of the writer more than of her work. The label “from outside” appears adequate for defining the place from which she observes and writes, not for the form of her literary output.