THE POETICS OF PAIN About the prose of Dubravka Ugrešić

Dubravka Ugrešić after leaving her homeland Croatia, considered herself a transnational writer, and she picked this status with all its consequences. She was very determined not to belong to any nation or national literature, saying, “Wherever she was, if she had to belong to someone, she belonged to her readers”. Consequently, in her texts, she has dealt with individual and collective memory, identity and nationality, as well as the status of women. The characteristic elements of her prose are the private and public life, East and the West, politics, media and poetics, and the melting of „high literature” and pulp fiction. The Study focuses on this unique combination of artwork by Dubravka Ugrešić.