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PRAISE FOR DUBRAVKA UGRESIC
“Ugresic, a game and inquisitive critic, looks at culture from all angles, which sometimes means picking up the mic. . . . Karaoke Culture is an essential investigation of our times.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Ugresic must be numbered among what Jacques Maritain called the dreamers of the true; she draws us into the dream.”
—New York Times
“[Karaoke Culture is] a brilliant collection of timely essays.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Dubravka Ugresic is the philosopher of evil and exile, and the storyteller of many shattered lives.”
—Charles Simic
“A unique tone of voice, a madcap wit and a lively sense of the absurd. Ingenious.”
—Marina Warner
ALSO BY DUBRAVKA UGRESIC
ESSAYS
The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays
Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream
Karaoke Culture
Nobody’s Home
Thank You for Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia
FICTION
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg
Fording the Stream of Consciousness
In the Jaws of Life and Other Stories
Lend Me Your Character
The Ministry of Pain
The Museum of Unconditional Surrender
Copyright © 2013 by Dubravka Ugrešić
Translation copyright © 2014 David Williams
Originally published in Croatian as Europa u sepiji (Beograd: Fabrika knjiga 2013)
First edition, 2014
All rights reserved
All citations of Envy by Yuri Olesha are taken from Marian Schwartz’s 2004 translation, published by New York Review Books.
Essays from this collection previously appeared in the following: “Fatal Attraction,” “Liquid Times,” “Jumping off the Bridge,” “A Mouthful,” and “Soul for Rent!” appeared together under the title “My Own Little Mission” in The Baffler; “The Code,” “The Dream of Dorian Grey,” “A Middle Finger,” and “Who Is Timmy Monster?” appeared together as “The Code” in The Baffler; “Wittgenstein’s Steps” appeared as “Wittgenstein’s Steps: A Letter from Unified Europe” in The Baffler; an abridged version of “ON-zone” appeared as “Out of Nation Zone” in Salmagundi; “Europe in Sepia” and “Mice Shadows” appeared in Salmagundi; “A Croatian Fairy” appeared in The White Review; an abridged version of “Can a Book Save our Life?” appeared in Bookforum; and an abridged version of “Zagreb Zoo” appeared in PEN Atlas.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Available upon request.
ISBN-13: 978-1-934824-90-0
Text set in Caslon, a family of serif typefaces based on the designs of William Caslon (1692–1766).
Design by N. J. Furl
Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press: Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627
CONTENTS
1. EUROPE IN SEPIA
The Museum of Tomorrow
Manifesto
2. MY OWN LITTLE MISSION
Circus
Fatal Attraction
Bad Pupils
Liquid Times
Jumping off the Bridge
A Mouthful
Soul for Rent!
The Code
The Dream of Dorian Gray
A Middle Finger
Who Is Timmy Monster?
3. ENDANGERED SPECIES
Can a Book Save Our Life?
A Women’s Canon?
Zagreb Zoo
What Is an Author Made Of?
ON-Zone
“We are a breed of men that has reached its upper limit,” he would say, banging his mug on the marble like a hoof.
—Yuri Olesha, Envy
NEW YORK, ZUCCOTTI PARK
I visited New York in October 2011, and a couple of days after arriving,
