The Culture of Lies

"The Culture of Lies" shows us the banality and brutality of nationalism and the way that nationalistic ideology permeates every pore of life. Ugresic's acerbic and penetrating essays cover everything from politics to daily routine, from public to private life. With a diverse and unusual perspective, she writes about memory, soap operas, aggression against people's own 'brothers', the conformity of intellectuals, propaganda and censorship, the strategies of human manipulation and the walls of Europe, which, she argues, never really did fall. Shot through with sarcasm and satire, "The Culture of Lies", written in the tradition of Milan Kundera and Karl Kraus, is a gesture of intellectual resistance by a writer brandished 'a traitor' and 'a witch' in Croatia. This is one of the most intelligent and lucid accounts of an appalling episode in history.