SLAVENKA DRAKULIĆ
Croatia
Slavenka Drakulić (1949) was born in Rijeka, Croatia. She is a graduate in comparative literature and sociology in Zagreb. She worked as a journalist in a weekly newspaper, and today her columns are read in "The Guardian" and "The New York Times". Boldly, almost confessionally, she writes about feminism, illness and the female body, politics, communism and post-communism! Slavenka is a symbol for an eternal rebel guided by the world of hippies and free love. Her book The Deadly Sins of Feminism (1984) was the first feminist book in Eastern Europe. Based on her novel "Kao da me nema", the film "As if I'm not there" was filmed about the rape of women in Serbian camps during the war in Bosnia. Winner of the "Prize for European Understanding" in Leipzig.
Invisible Woman and other Short Stories
Translation: Kristina Velevska
One of the most influential European writers of our time dedicates her latest book to aging. Is it possible to prevent old age? Artificial rejuvenation for the body, flirting with strangers for the spirit. Does invisibility come with age? Stories with the deepest sympathy about interpersonal relationships, the parent-child parallel, departure, illness, death, disappearance, forgetting. Without holding back, she talks about the experience of life falling apart, in a cathartic, painful, but also liberating way. Stories told from a strong female perspective make for a direct intimate familiarity and connection with our everyday lives. Everything that is silent, and emotionally difficult and limited: the painful and gradual disappearance, up to the constant feeling that you are a social "surplus".