Writing the Yugoslav Wars: Literature, Postmodernism, and the Ethics of Representation

by Dragana Obradovic

In Writing the Yugoslav Wars , Dragana Obradović analyses how the Yugoslav wars of secession helped shape the region’s literary culture. Obradović argues that the crisis of the country’s disintegration posed an ethical challenge to self-identified postmodernists. This book takes a transnational approach to literatures of the former Yugoslavia that have been, since the 1990s, studied separately, in line with geopolitical divisions. This post-socialist conflict was one of the moments that reshaped postmodernism for both local and international thinkers, much in the same way modernism was shaped by World War I and the advent of mechanized warfare.

232 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2016

Reviews

[Mark Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an erudite book directed to those familiar with postmodern literary criticism who are interested in three writers from the former Yugoslavia who wrote of the dissolution of their country. Of the three writers (Semezdin Mehmedinović, Dubravka Ugrešić, and David Albahari), I was only familiar with the second, having read two of her books in English. For this reason, and because generally prefer plain speaking to high academic style, I only thought this book was “OK.” I really liked the chapter on Ugrešić, which was written in a more accessible manner and gave me a lot of information I hadn’t had.

[Lillzebub · Rating 4 out of 5]

An introduction to a morsel of post modernist Yugo literature produced in the wake of the war in Bosnia. I appreciated the author’s focus on the ethics of literary production and the limits of witnessing—by locals, outsiders, artists, the press, or the government—in a war zone. Way more to unpack, but this realm of literary inquiry and the authors mentioned pique my interest.