 
|
Thank You for Not ReadingAuthor: Dubravka Ugresic Translator: Celia Hawkesworth Eastern European Literature Series November 2003 220 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 Paperback, 1-56478-298-0 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $11.16 
|
Book Description
In this collection of acerbic essays, Ugresic dissects the nature of the contemporary book industry, which she argues is so infected with the need to create and promote literature that will appeal to the masses—literally to everyone—that if Thomas Mann were writing nowadays, his books wouldn't even be published in the U.S. because they're not sexy enough.
A playful and biting critique, Ugresic's essays hit on all of the major aspects of publishing: agents, subagents, and scouts, supermarket-like bookstores, Joan Collins, book fairs that have little to do with books, authors promoted because of sex appeal instead of merit, and editors trying to look like writers by having their photograph taken against a background of bookshelves.
Thanks to cultural influences such as Oprah, The Today Show, and Kelly Ripa, best-seller lists have become just a modern form of socialist realism, a manifestation of a society that generally ignores literature in favor of the next big thing.
About the Author
|
Dubravka Ugresic is the author of several works of fiction, including The Museum of Unconditional Surrender and Fording the Stream of Consciousness, and three collections of essays, Have a Nice Day, The Culture of Lies, and most recently Thank You for Not Reading. She has received several international prizes for her writing, including the Swiss Charles Veillon European Essay Prize, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and most recently the Premio Feronio-Citta di Fiano. Born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, she left her homeland in 1993 for political reasons and currently lives in Amsterdam. |
About the Translator
| Celia Hawkesworth was Senior Lecturer in Serbian and Croatian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London until her retirement. She has published numerous articles and several books on Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian literature, including a study Ivo Andric: Bridge between East and West, Athlone Press, London, 1984 and Voices in the Shadows: Women and Verbal Art in Serbia and Bosnia, CEU Press, Budapest, 2000. She has also published numerous translations, including several works by Ivo Andric and Dubravka Ugresic. |
Praise
"A brilliant, enthralling spread of story-telling and high-velocity reflections . . . Ugresic is a writer to follow. A writer to be cherished."—Susan Sontag"Ugresic must be numbered among what Jacques Maritain called the dreamers of the true; she draws us into the dream."—Richard Eder, New York Times
"Like Nabokov, Ugresic affirms our ability to remember as a source for saving our moral and compassionate identity."—John Balaban, Washington Post
"Dubravka Ugresic is the philosopher of evil and exile, and the storyteller of many shattered lives the wars in former Yugoslavia produced . . . This is an utterly original, beautiful and supremely intelligent novel."—Charles Simic