American Fictionary - by Dubravka Ugresic (Paperback)

About the Book

First published as Have a nice day: from the Balkan War to the American Dream, London, Jonathan Cape 1994; New York, Viking Penguin 1995. This is a new revised edition.

Book Synopsis

In the midst of the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s, Dubravka Ugresic--winner of the 2016 Neustadt International Prize for Literature--was invited to Middletown, Connecticut as a guest lecturer. A world away from the brutal sieges of Sarajevo and the nationalist rhetoric of Milosevic, she instead has to cope with everyday life in America, where she's assaulted by "strong personalities," the cult of the body, endless amounts of jogging and exercise, bagels, and an obsession with public confession. Organized as a fictional dictionary, these early essays of Ugresic's (revised and amended for this edition) allow us to see American culture through the eyes of a woman whose country is being destroyed by war, and forces us to see through the comforting veil of Western consumerism.

Review Quotes

Winner of the 2016 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

"It takes a stranger to see how dark this world is: Dubravka Ugresic is that stranger."--Joseph Brodsky

"Like Nabokov, Ugresic affirms our ability to remember as a source for saving our moral and compassionate identity."--John Balaban, Washington Post

"A genuinely free-thinker, Ugresic's attachment to absurdity leads her down paths where other writers fear to tread."--The Independent

"As long as some, like Ugresic, who can write well, do, there will be hope for the future."--New Criterion

"Ugresic's wit is bound by no preconceived purposes, and once the story takes off, a wild freedom of association and adventurous discernment is set in motion. . . . Ugresic dissects the social world."--World Literature Today

"Never has a writer been more aware of how one narrative depends on another."--Joanna Walsh

"Ugresic is unbeatable at explaining the inexplicable entanglements of Balkan cultural traditions, particularly as they relate to the hellish position of women."--Clive James

"Ugresic is also affecting and eloquent, in part because within her quirky, aggressively sweet plot she achieves moments of profundity and evokes the stoicism innate in such moments."--Mary Gaitskill

Ugresic must be numbered among what Jacques Maritain called the dreamers of the true; she draws us into the dream."--New York Times

"Dubravka Ugresic is the philosopher of evil and exile, and the storyteller of many shattered lives."--Charles Simic

About the Author

Dubravka Ugresic is the author of six works of fiction, including The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, and six essay collections, including the NBCC award finalist, Karaoke Culture. She went into exile from Croatia after being labeled a "witch" for her anti-nationalistic stance during the Yugoslav war. She now resides in the Netherlands. In 2016, she was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature for her body of work.

Celia Hawkesworth is the translator of numerous works of Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian literature, including Dubravka Ugresic's The Culture of Lies for which she won the Heldt Prize for Translation in 1999.

Ellen Elias-Bursac is a translator of South Slavic literature. Her accolades include the 2006 National Translation Award for her translation of David Albahari's novel Götz and Meyer. She is currently the Vice President of the American Literary Translators Association.