The culture of lies - Dubravka Ugresic

A funny and cynical collection of essays, apercus and sketches denouncing the perversions of political and cultural life in Croatia. The Culture of Lies was written as a reaction to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the unholy war in Croatia and Bosnia. The collection attacks and attempts to understand events in the former Yugoslavia: aggression against people's own brothers, artificial amnesties; adoption of nationalist fascist ideologies; propaganda and censorship; folklore kitsch as a culture of a lie; writers and intellectuals caught up in the Maelstrom of Nationalism. Ugresic's ascerbic and pentrating essays cover everything from politics to daily routine, from public to private life. This is 1 of the most intelligent and lucid accounts of this episode in history by a writer herself exiled and struggling to find a new identity.