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© Hartwig Klappert
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Slavenka Drakulic
Croatia/Sweden
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Slavenka Drakulić was
born in Rijeka, today Croatia, in 1949. She studied Literature and
Sociology, taught at a high school in Zagreb until 1984, and later
worked as an editor for periodicals such as the political magazine
»Danas«. She quit the editorial staff once the gazette was privatised
and would become a mouthpiece of Tudjman's government. Ever since 1992
she has worked as a freelance writer and journalist, whose political
feature articles have been published in major American, German,
Italian, English, Austrian and Swedish newspapers. After her critical
posture towards nationalist tendencies in her country led to hostility,
she relocated to Stockholm, where she lives with her husband, the
journalist Richard Swartz.
Drakulić's sharp and intelligent analyses
of Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe, the Balkan Wars and the new states
that have emerged from them, are gathered together in five volumes. Her
first books were »How we Survived Communism and Even Laughed« (1991)
and »Sterben in Kroatien« (1992; t: Dying in Croatia). »Café Europa –
Life After Communism« (1996) documents the not always realistic image
of Europe which is predominant in the Balkan countries, whose people
are insufficiently prepared for the challenge of democracy. From
another perspective, Drakulić's strong moralistic perception shows
through in her novels, which tend to focus on the evil within human
nature and to pursue the issue of responsibility. »Bozanska glad«
(1995; Eng. »The Taste of a Man«, 1997) tells the story of a romantic
relationship at whose end one of the lovers is literally absorbed by
the other. »Mramorna koza« (1989; Eng. »Marble Skin«, 1993) also
describes the destructive consequences of extreme passion: the longing
for intimacy with her mother induces the daughter to expose herself to
the sexual assaults of her lover. The novel »Kao da me nema« (1999;
Eng. »As If I Am Not There«, 1999) is a precise and sobering account of
the destiny of a Bosnian woman who must endure a war, a camp, rape and
ensuing pregnancy. In Drakulić's latest documentary work, »They Would
Never Hurt a Fly« (2003), the author once more pleads for the
individualisation of guilt. After watching for months from the public
tribune at the trials before the International Criminal Tribunal in The
Hague and at further trials in Croatia, she composed around a dozen
portraits of war criminals, who were once normal, at times even
amiable, and timid men. These case studies for what Hannah Arendt
already described in »The Banality of Evil« are at the same time an
appeal for moral courage and compassion.
Drakulić was awarded
Leipzig's Book Prize for European Understanding in 2005 and lives at
present in Berlin, where she is a guest of the German Academic Exchange
Service.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Wie wir den Kommunismus überstanden ...
Rowohlt
Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991
[T: Ulrike Bischoff]
Sterben in Kroatien
Rowohlt
Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1992
[T: Katharina Wolf-Griesshaber]
Café Paradies oder Die Sehnsucht nach Europa
Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag
Berlin, 1997
Das Liebesopfer
Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag
Berlin, 1999
[T: Astrid Philippsen]
Marmorhaut
Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag
Berlin, 2000
[T: Astrid Philippsen] Als gäbe es mich nicht
Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag
Berlin, 2002
[T: Astrid Philippsen]
Keiner war dabei
Zsolnay
Wien, 2004
[T: Barbara Antkowiak] |
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