Massolit Discussion: Dystopia in Contemporary Croatian Literature w/ Aleksandra Wojtaszek

After the collapse of the former Yugoslvia, literature in newly independent Croatia was dominated mainly by neo-realist trends. Over the past few years, however, there's been a rapid growth in the popularity of dystopian novels – a genre which until now had been almost non-existent. The ubiquity of dystopian themes is even observable in pop culture, as well as young adult literature. Present-day societal problems are depicted at the system level, without necessarily paying heed to various epiphenomena, and in effect, these works defamiliarize and restructure the readers' own experience of everyday reality. 

In interpreting dystopian contemporary literary coming out of Serbia, Aleksandra Wojtaszek will rely on such concepts and categories as exclusion, subordination and punishment based on the philosophy of Michel Foucault and the works of Giorgio Agamben. 

ALEKSANDRA WOJTASZEK is a Ph.D. candidate in South Slavic Literature at the Jagiellonian University and is active as a reporter, lecturer and translator, specializing in Croatian as well as Bosnian and Herzogovinian contemporary literature. She has published in various magazines including "Ha!art" and "Polityka".