Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dubravka Ugrei
Description:
About Author:
Dubravka Ugrei earned her degrees in Comparative Literature, Russian Language and Literature
at the University of Zagreb, and worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at
Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar.
She started writing professionally with screenplays for childrens television programs, as an
undergraduate. In 1971 she published her first book for children Mali plamen, which was awarded
a prestigious Croatian literary prize for childrens literature. Ugresic published two more books
(Filip i Srecica, 1976; Kucni duhovi, 1988), and then gave up writing for children.
As a literary scholar Dubravka Ugrei was particularly interested in Russian avant-garde culture.
She was a co-editor of the international scholarly project Pojmovnik ruske avangarde, (A Glossary
of the Russian Avangarde) for many years. She rediscovered forgotten Russian writers such as
Konstantin Vaginov and Leonid Dobychin, and published a book on Russian contemporary fiction
(Nova ruska proza, 1980). She translated fiction into Croatian from Russian (Boris Pilnyak, Gola
godina; Daniil Kharms, Nule i nistice), and edited anthologies of both Russian contemporary
(Pljuska u ruci, 1989) and avant-garde writing.
Dubravka Ugrei was best known in the former Yugoslavia for her fiction, novels and short stories:
Poza za prozu, 1978; Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota, 1981; Zivot je bajka, 1983; Forsiranje romana
reke, 1988. Her novel Forsiranje romana reke was given the coveted NIN-award for the best novel
of the year: Ugrei was the first woman to receive this honor. Croatian film director Rajko Grlic
made a film U raljama zivota (1984) based on Ugreis short novel Stefica Cvek u raljama zivota.
Ugrei co-authored the screenplay, as she did with screenplays for two other movies and a TV
drama.
In 1991, when the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugrei took a firm anti-nationalistic
stand and consequently an anti-war stand. She started to write critically about nationalism (both
Croatian and Serbian), the stupidity and criminality of war, and soon became a target of the
nationalistically charged media, officials, politicians, fellow writers and anonymous citizens. She
was proclaimed a traitor, a public enemy and a witch, ostracized and exposed to harsh and
persistent media harassment. She left Croatia in 1993.
Dubravka Ugrei has continued writing since she began living abroad. She has published both
novels (Muzej bezuvjetne predaje, Ministarstvo boli) and books of essays (Americki fikcionar,
Kultura lazi, Zabranjeno citanje, Nikog nema doma). Ugreis essays have appeared in American
(Context, The Hedgehog Review) and European newspapers and magazines (such as Vrij
Nederland, NRC Handelsblad, Die Zeit, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Die Welt Woche, and many
others). She teaches occasionally at American and European universities. Her books have been
translated into more then twenty languages. Dubravka Ugrei has received several major
European literary awards. In 2016, Ugrei won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
She is based in Amsterdam today, working as a freelance writer.
Other Editions:
Books By Author:
- Trieste
- Garden, Ashes
- Sarajevo Marlboro
- The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-
1999
- Premeditated Murder
Rewiews: