https://doi.org/10.60056/Lit.2024.33.426-441
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1306334
Gypsies in Dubravka Ugrešić’s Prose and Essays
Liudmila Mindova
Institute for Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
lmindova@yahoo.co.uk
The article explores the minority metaphors in Dubravka Ugrešić’s prose and essay, with a particular focus on the appearance and enrichment of the image of Gypsy ethnic group during the émigré period of her work. From American Fic- tionary (1993) to her most recent essay collections, the Gypsy image is directly connected to her self-representations as a writer in exile, whose true homeland has no geographic or ethnic boundaries, but solely aesthetic dimensions. On the other hand, despite her declarations, Ugrešić’s work is characterized by the poetics of “double bottom”, i.e., the use of literature as a political act. In this sense, the Gypsy image in her prose and essays serves as an unequivocal critique of the chauvinistic extremes during the breakup wars of the former Yugoslavia.
Keywords: cultural semiotics, literary anthropology, minority issues, magical realism
For citation: Mindova, L. Gypsies in Dubravka Ugrešić’s Prose and Essays. // The Literature, Year XVIII, 2024, Issue 33. Sofia: Univerisity Press “St. Kli- ment Ohridski”. (In Bulgarian)
About the author: Liudmila Mindova graduated from Slavic philology at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and received a Master’s degree in 1998 and a PhD degree in 2006. She is the author of a few collections of poems, a novel and two monographs on South Slavic literatures: “The Voice of the Baroque. Ivan Gundulić and the Croatian Baroque Norm” (2011) and “The Other Ithaca. On the Literary Home” (2016). In her translation are published many books by Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav writers. Liudmila Mindova is currently an associated professor at the Institute for Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) and a part-time lecturer at Sofia University.
