Slavenka Drakulić (born July 4, 1949) is a

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

, and

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

whose works on

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

, and

post-communism Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in post-Soviet states and other formerly communist states located in Central-Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, in which new governments ...

have been translated into many languages.

Biography

Drakulić was born in

Rijeka Rijeka (; Fiume ( �fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman dialect, Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Ba ...

Socialist Republic of Croatia The Socialist Republic of Croatia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Hrvatska, Социјалистичка Република Хрватска), commonly abbreviated as SR Croatia and referred to as simply Croatia, was a ...

(at that time, part of socialist Yugoslavia), on July 4, 1949. She graduated in

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

and

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

from the University in Zagreb in 1976. From 1982 to 1992, she was a staff writer for the ''Start'' bi-weekly newspaper and news weekly ''Danas'' (both in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

), writing mainly on feminist issues. In addition to her novels and collections of essays, Drakulić's work has appeared in ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'', ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazi ...

'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

'', ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...

'', '' Internazionale'', ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'', ''

La Stampa (English: "The Press") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin with an average circulation of 87,143 copies in May 2023. Distributed in Italy and other European nations, it is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. Until the late 1970 ...

'', ''

Dagens Nyheter (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record A newspaper of record is a major nationa ...

'', ''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...

'',

Eurozine ''Eurozine '' is a network of European cultural magazines based in Vienna, linking up more than 90 partner journals and just as many associated magazines and institutions from nearly all European countries. ''Eurozine'' is also an online magazin ...

, ''

Politiken ''Politiken'' is a leading Danish daily broadsheet newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1884 and played a role in the formation of the Danish Social Liberal Party. Since 1970 it has been indepe ...

'' and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. She is a contributing editor for ''The Nation''. She lives in

and in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. Drakulić temporarily left Croatia for Sweden in the early 1990s for political reasons during the

Yugoslav wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...

. A notorious unsigned 1992 '' Globus'' article (

Slaven Letica Slaven Letica (28 June 1947 – 25 October 2020) was a Croatian author, economist, commentator and politician. Biography A native of Podgora, Letica graduated from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Economics in 1971. In the 1980s, Letica was ...

subsequently admitted to being its author) accused five Croatian female writers, Drakulić included, of being "witches" and of "raping" Croatia. According to Letica, these writers failed to take a definitive stance against rape as allegedly planned military tactic by Bosnian Serb forces against Croats, and rather treated it as crimes of "unidentified males" against women. Soon after the publication, Drakulić started to receive telephone threats; her property was also vandalized. Finding little or no support from her erstwhile friends and colleagues, she decided to leave Croatia. In 1994, he received the prize "Archivio Disarmo - Golden Doves for Peace" from IRIAD. Her noted works relate to the

. ''As If I Am Not There'' is about crimes against women in the Bosnian War, while '' They Would Never Hurt a Fly'' is a book in which she also analyzed her experience overseeing the proceedings and the inmates of the

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. Both books touch on the same issues that caused her wartime emigration from the home country. In scholarly circles, she is better known for her two collections of essays: "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" and "Cafe Europa". These are both non-fiction accounts of Drakulić's life during and after communism. Her 2008 novel, ''Frida's Bed'', is based on a biography of the Mexican painter

Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country' ...

. Her 2011 book of essays, ''A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism: Fables from a Mouse, a Parrot, a Bear, a Cat, a Mole, a Pig, a Dog, & a Raven'', was published by Penguin in the US, and was widely reviewed to great acclaim. The book consists of eight reflections told from the point of view of a different animal. Each beast reflects on the remembrance of communism in different countries in Eastern Europe. In the second-to-last chapter, a Romanian dog explains that under capitalism everyone is unequal "but some are more unequal than others", an inversion of a famous

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

quote from

Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' (originally ''Animal Farm: A Fairy Story'') is a satirical allegorical novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic far ...

. In 2021, Drakulić published a new essay collection, ''Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism'', which reflected on the continued divisions between Eastern and Western Europe even thirty years after the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. The title of this book refers back to the two essay collections she published in the 1990s, ''How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed'' (1992) and ''Café Europa: Life After Communism'' (1997), and attempts to take stock of the last three decades of changes. Drakulić writes about the bitter disappointments felt by many East Europeans who expected that the revolutions of 1989 would usher in a new era of democracy and prosperity. Instead, the essays in this collection reveal that East Europeans still feel like second class citizens. In her chapter discussing what she calls "European food apartheid," Drakulić describes how investigators found that Western corporations sold lower quality products in the East under the same brand names and packaging they use in the West: fish sticks with less fish in them and biscuits made with cheaper

palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from o ...

instead of butter. Drakulić also ruminates on the persistence of post-communist nostalgia in the region, as people try to grapple with both the positive and negative legacies of their collective pasts. She writes, “In all former communist countries in Eastern Europe, it is difficult to mention the merits of communism, a system that, in a short time, brought modernization and changed an agrarian society into an urbanized, industrial one. It meant general education as well as the emancipation of women; this has to be recognized, even though such changes were accomplished by a totalitarian regime.” Drakulić lives in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

and

. In 2020, she contracted a severe case of COVID-19 and was hospitalized for twelve days in an intensive care unit, six of which she spent on a ventilator.

Bibliography

Fiction

* ''Holograms Of Fear'' Hutchinson, London (

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

). * ''Marble Skin'' Hutchinson, London (

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

). * ''The Taste of a Man'' Abacus, London (

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

) * ''S -a novel about Balkans'' (also known as: "As If I Am Not There") (

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

). Made into a movie "

As If I Am Not There ''As If I Am Not There'' (Serbian: Као да ме нема, ''Kao da me nema'') is a 2010 Irish-Serbian drama film directed by Juanita Wilson. The film is set in the Balkans and is shot in the Serbo-Croatian language. It was selected as the I ...

", directed by Juanita Wilson. * ''S.- A Novel About The Balkans'' (

) : January 1, 2001 by Penguin Books * ''Frida's Bed'' Penguin USA, New York (

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

), (translated by Christina P. Zorić)

Non-fiction

* ''Smrtni grijesi feminizma'' (

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

) only in Croatian * ''How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed'', Hutchinson, London (

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

). * ''Balkan Express: Fragments from the Other Side of the War'', W.W. Norton, New York (

). * '' Cafe Europa: Life After Communism'' Abacus, London (

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

) * '' They Would Never Hurt a Fly: War Criminals on Trial in the Hague'' Abacus -Time Warner, London (

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

) * * "Tijelo njenog tijela" (

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

) available in Croatian, German and Polish. Available as an e-book in English "Flesh of Her Flesh". * "Two Underdogs and a Cat", Seagull Books . London, NY, Calcutta (

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

) * ''A Guided Tour through the Museum of Communism. Fables from a Mouse, a Parrot, a Bear, a Cat, a Mole, a Pig, a Dog, and a Raven'', Penguin, New York, (

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

) Also in Croatian,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Swedish, Bulgarian and Italian. *''Cafe Europa Revisited'', Penguin (

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

) , also in Croatian, Ukrainian, and

.Selected Foreign Language Editions of ''Cafe Europa Revisited''
/ref>

Articles

We Are All Albanians
1999
Bosnian Women Witness
2001
Crime in the circles of power
October 2008

2009
Articles on Eurozine

Articles in The Nation

Articles in The Guardian

2008
Slavenka Drakulic and Katha Pollitt in conversation
2011

References

External links

The official Slavenka Drakulic SiteSlavenka Drakulic receives the Leipzig Book Award for European UnderstandingExtract from "Two Underdogs and a Cat"
*Slavenka Drakulic speaking at Festivaletteratura 2009
Scintille: La leggenda del Muro di Berlino
*Public lecture by Slavenka Drakulić: �
Intellectuals as Bad Guys? The Role of Intellectuals in the Balkan Wars
May 15–19, 2014, Kyiv Ukraine: Thinking Together *Book Talk by Slavenka Drakulić
Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism
Harriman Institute at Columbia University, April 5, 2022 {{DEFAULTSORT:Drakulic, Slavenka 1949 births Living people Writers from Rijeka Croatian novelists Croatian essayists Swedish people of Croatian descent Croatian dissidents Croatian expatriates in Sweden Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni Croatian feminists 20th-century Croatian women writers 21st-century Croatian women writers Yugoslav essayists Yugoslav writers Yugoslav women writers Croatian women essayists Croatian women novelists Croatian non-fiction writers Croatian women columnists International Writing Program alumni 20th-century essayists 21st-century essayists The Nation (U.S. magazine) people