Dialogical Memories and Negotiation of Identities in Post-Yugoslav literatures

• In Event: Representations of Memory in Contemporary Balkan Literature: Poetics of a Common European Memory?

Abstract

The paper delves into the ethics of identity in post-Yugoslav literature, focusing on how authors situate character-narrators in a liminal state to reshape their identities through the interplay of past memories and present exile. Simultaneously, the study underscores a metaliterary dimension that affirms the European character of this literature, running parallel to the characters’ journeys of self-discovery. To analyze this dual exploration, the author examines three contemporary BCMS novels in their semi-peripheral context. Drawing on both Dialogical Theories and Memory Studies, as well as Lucy Gasser’s critique of cultural Eurocentrism, the paper investigates identity both within post-Yugoslav literary works and in the broader discourse regarding their status as European literature. The novels analyzed include The Museum of Unconditional Surrender (1996) by Dubravka Ugrešić; Hansen’s Children (2004) by Ognjen Spahić; and Catch the Rabbit (2018) by Lana Bastašić.

Author

• Raul Algarin, Autonomous U of Barcelona (Spain)