Europe in Sepia with Dubravka Ugresic (11/21/13)
Join us on Thursday, November 21, for an evening of conversation with Dubravka Ugresic, one of Europe’s most distinctive novelists and essayists. From her early postmodernist excursions, to her elegiac reckonings in fiction and the essay with the disintegration of her Yugoslav homeland and the fall of the Berlin Wall, through to her more recent writings on popular and literary culture, Ugresic’s work is marked by a rare combination of irony, polemic, and compassion. The event will be moderated by Igor Lukes, professor of international relations and history.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
6–7:30 p.m.
Boston University Photonics Center, 8 St. Mary’s Street, 9th Floor
Free and open to the public | Reception and book-signing to follow
Following degrees in comparative and Russian literature, Dubravka Ugresic worked for many years at the University of Zagreb’s Institute for Theory of Literature, successfully pursuing parallel careers as both a writer and a scholar. In 1991, when war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugresic took a firm anti-war stance, critically dissecting retrograde Croatian and Serbian nationalism, the stupidity and criminality of war, becoming a target for nationalist journalists, politicians, and fellow writers in the process. Subjected to prolonged public ostracization and persistent media harassment, she left Croatia in 1993. In a voluntary exile that has in time become emigration, her books have been translated into over 20 languages. She lives and works in Amsterdam.
This event takes place as part of our European Voices series—an ongoing series of conversations with artists and writers, activists and intellectuals exploring questions at the intersection of politics and culture. Cosponsored by the literary journal AGNI. Funded in part by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, DC.