Biography of Dubravka Ugrešić (1949–2023)

Dubravka Ugrešić was an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and playwright, known for her sharp intellect, irony, and fearless critique of nationalism and cultural conformity. She graduated in Comparative and Russian Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, where she later worked for two decades at the Institute for Literary Theory and History.

Her breakthrough novel Štefica Cvek u raljama života (Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life, 1981) playfully deconstructed romantic clichés and became one of the defining works of Yugoslav postmodern literature. It was adapted into a popular film in 1984.

In the early 1990s, Ugrešić publicly opposed nationalism, war, and ethnic hatred. Her essays from that period, collected in Kultura laži (The Culture of Lies, 1999), sharply criticized the cultural and moral collapse of the former Yugoslavia. For her stance, she was vilified by the Croatian media and labeled a “traitor” and “witch.” In 1993, she left Croatia and lived abroad, primarily in the Netherlands, where she continued to write, teach at universities in Europe and the United States, and publish essays in major international journals.

“We are all footnotes, many of us will never have the chance to be read, all of us in unrelenting and desperate struggle for our lives — for the life of a footnote — to remain on the surface before, in spite of our efforts, we are submerged.”
— Lisica (The Fox)

Ugrešić’s work questions the nature of literature and authorship, explores identity in exile, and juxtaposes popular culture with high art. She was the first woman to receive the prestigious NIN Award in 1988.

Her other notable works include Američki fikcionar (American Fictionary, 1993), Muzej bezuvjetne predaje (The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, 1998), Thank You for Not Reading (2001), Ministarstvo boli (The Ministry of Pain, 2004), and Baba Jaga je snijela jaje (Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, 2010). Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages and remain widely read across the world.