I Doctoral Seminar

Raúl Algarín

(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

“O nama”: Poetics of Memory and Identity in the Post-Yugoslav Literature of Exile

Abstract: Warfare in the former-Yugoslavia during the 90s impacted society in a way that could not be ignored by literature. Whereas post-realism and historicism were predominant all along the 80s and the early years of the following decade, the aftermath of the Yugoslavian wars led to the publication of numerous works focussed on traumatic war experiences and ethnic turmoil. This happened across the new borders, showing the maintenance of a regional polysystem in literature written in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian (BCMS). 

Writers such as Dubravka Ugrešić or David Albahari, who witnessed the collapse of their country from exile, contributed to post-Yugoslavian literature with narratives of memory and identity in fictionalized autobiographies where they questioned themselves about their own identity in the first person (o nama, about us). Their novels opened the regional literary realm to a more cosmopolitan vision and a more international readership, which enabled their consolidation in the global literary field despite writing in their native language. The international success of these writers in exile brought about a new regional canon that included new voices like Dragan Velikić first, then novelists such as Lana Bastašić, Ognjen Spahić, Tanja Stupar-Trifunović and Faruk Šehić among many others. These authors show not only undeniable common traits in topic and style with their predecessors, but also the experience of strangeness in a world now characterized by processes of integration and blurrier borders. 

After situating them in the sociopolitical and historical context of exile and the field of global literary studies, this research draws from rhetorical narratology and memory studies to explore how both generations of authors captured and conveyed their own processes of remembrance and reflected their personal and collective identity. Furthermore, it explores the position of the exiled authors as catalysts who opened the post-Yugoslav literary field and takes their works for a study case to understand the institutional national and international ecosystem for the reception of their novels and the impact these ones might have had in the shaping of the 21st-century regional literary scene, therefore delving into a case of expanding small literatures. 

Key words: exile, Balkan literature, memory, rhetorical narrative, identity, world literature.