LITMIR.BIZ

      Copyright © 2013 by Dubravka Ugrešić

      Translation copyright © 2014 David Williams

      Originally published in Croatian as Europa u sepiji (Beograd: Fabrika knjiga 2013)

      First edition, 2014

      All rights reserved

      All citations of Envy by Yuri Olesha are taken from Marian Schwartz’s 2004 translation, published by New York Review Books.

      Essays from this collection previously appeared in the following: “Fatal Attraction,” “Liquid Times,” “Jumping off the Bridge,” “A Mouthful,” and “Soul for Rent!” appeared together under the title “My Own Little Mission” in The Baffler; “The Code,” “The Dream of Dorian Grey,” “A Middle Finger,” and “Who Is Timmy Monster?” appeared together as “The Code” in The Baffler; “Wittgenstein’s Steps” appeared as “Wittgenstein’s Steps: A Letter from Unified Europe” in The Baffler; an abridged version of “ON-zone” appeared as “Out of Nation Zone” in Salmagundi; “Europe in Sepia” and “Mice Shadows” appeared in Salmagundi; “A Croatian Fairy” appeared in The White Review; an abridged version of “Can a Book Save our Life?” appeared in Bookforum; and an abridged version of “Zagreb Zoo” appeared in PEN Atlas.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Available upon request.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-934824-90-0

      Text set in Caslon, a family of serif typefaces based on the designs of William Caslon (1692–1766).

       Design by N. J. Furl

      Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press: Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627

       www.openletterbooks.org

      CONTENTS

1. EUROPE IN SEPIA

Nostalgia

Europe in Sepia

Wittgenstein’s Steps

Mice Shadows

The Croatian Fairy

       The Museum of Tomorrow

       Manifesto

       2. MY OWN LITTLE MISSION

       Circus

       Fatal Attraction

       Bad Pupils

       Liquid Times

       Jumping off the Bridge

       A Mouthful

       Soul for Rent!

       The Code

       The Dream of Dorian Gray

       A Middle Finger

       Who Is Timmy Monster?

       3. ENDANGERED SPECIES

       Can a Book Save Our Life?

       A Women’s Canon?

       Zagreb Zoo

       What Is an Author Made Of?

       ON-Zone

       1. EUROPE IN SEPIA

       “We are a breed of men that has reached its upper limit,” he would say, banging his mug on the marble like a hoof.

      —Yuri Olesha, Envy

NOSTALGIA

      NEW YORK, ZUCCOTTI PARK

      I visited New York in October 2011, and a couple of days after arriving, I set off for Wall Street, not having checked the exact location of Zuccotti Park. Coming out of the subway, I fortunately spotted an information kiosk.

      “Excuse me, where’s the, ah . . . revolution?” I asked goofily.

      “Just go straight on, it’s a few blocks away,” replied a young guy, his face spreading into a smile. Buoyed by the smile, I got going. As the rhythm of my pulse quickened, I wondered whether a long dormant rebel virus was stirring in me. Rebel?! Well, yeah, when you line up a few historical and personal details, it’s fair to say that rebellion and I are well acquainted.

      My parents conceived me around the time when Tito said his famous NO to Stalin. I came into the world in 1949, when the Soviet Union and its fraternity of member states had recently accused Yugoslavia of “deviating from the path of Marxism and Leninism.” The same year Tito was declared a traitor and Yugoslavia condemned to isolation. I was born on March 27. On the same date, albeit eight years previously, the slogan Better the grave than a slave, better war than the pact¹ was born. It was one I adopted at a tender age, and in time I developed a form of behavior, which psychologists—so adept at creating new terms—would today classify as LAT (Low Authoritarianism Tolerance) syndrome. It’s entirely possible that Tito’s famous NO to Stalin set me on my way as a budding naysayer.

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