The Other Side of the Map: Tamara Djermanovic’s Narrative of Return to the Former Yugoslavia

• In Event: Post-Yugoslav Literature(s) in Transnational Perspective

Abstract

Tamara Djermanović's (Serbia, 1965) return to her country in Viaje a mi país ya inexistente. Regreso a la antigua Yugoslavia (2013) (Journey to My Now Non-existent Country. Return to the Former Yugoslavia) exemplifies a distinctive way of re-constructing place which responds to her transnational experience and a need to account for her place of origin beyond what geopolitical borders dictate. She does so from multiple 'outskirts': that of the borders drawn by new nations, that of someone who has left and lives in another place and in another language, that of being a foreigner in her own country, and of writing in Spanish and for Spaniards. This writing of the 'outskirts' is a vital and feminine writing that, in narrating, weaves an alternative cartography, a two-sided map. It offers a territory that is constructed and understood through human transits and dialogues with people and their experiences of the places she traverses.

Author

• Laura Bak, U of Oviedo (Spain)