The Culture of Lies

A funny and cynical collection of essays, apercus and sketches denouncing the preversions of political and cultural life in Croatia. Dubravka Ugresic has been holding the fort of liberal reason almost alone against a vast army of blinkered, pot-bellied, chauvinistic men, all waving checkerboard flags from the slits of their little tank turreted minds...Brave ironical, subtle, funny and clear eyed, this book should also be in English. The Culture of lies was written as a reaction to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the unholy war in Croatia and Bosnia. The collection attacks and attempts to understand events in the former Yugolsavia: aggression against people's own brother; artificialamnesties; adoption of Nationalist fascist ideologies; propaganda and censorship; folklore kitsch as a culture of a lie; writers and intellectuals caught up in the maelstrom of Nationalism. Ugresic's ascerbic and pentrating essays cover everything from politics to daily routine, from public to private life. This is 1 of the most intelligent and lucid accounts of this episode in history by a writer herself exiled and struggling to find a new identity.