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As with the rest of her literary career, Dubravka Ugresic's final work, A Muzzle for Witches, is uncategorizable. On its surface, the book is a conversation with the literary critic Merima Omeragić, covering topics such as "Women and the Male Perspective," "The Culture of (Self)Harm," and "The Melancholy of Vanishing."
But the book is more than a simple interview: It's a roadmap of the literary world, exploring the past century and all of its violence and turmoil—especially in Yugoslavia, Ugresic's birth country—and providing a direction for the future of feminist writing.
One of the greatest thinkers of the past hundred years, Ugresic was one-of-a-kind, who novels and literary essays pushed the bounds of form and content, and A Muzzle for Witches offers the chance to see her at her most raw, and most playful.
"Ugrešić expresses a refreshing commitment to the 'invisible' space of literature where the participation of one great reader is enough to provide fulfillment. Lovers of international literature will be energized by this bracing tonic." —Publishers Weekly
"Sage closing remarks from a vital public intellectual." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Ugresic must be numbered among what Jacques Maritain called the dreamers of the true; she draws us into the dream." —New York Times
"Splendidly ambitious...A brilliant, enthralling spread of storytelling and high-velocity reflections...She is a writer to follow. A writer to be cherished." —Susan Sontag
"A madcap wit and a lively sense of the absurd...Filled with ingenious invention and surreal incident." —Marina Warner
This information about A Muzzle for Witches was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dubravka Ugresic is the author of six works of fiction, including The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, and six essay collections, including the NBCC award finalist, Karaoke Culture. In 2016, she was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature for her body of work. She went into exile from Croatia after being labeled a "witch" for her anti-nationalistic stance during the Yugoslav war. She lived in the Netherlands until her passing in March 2023.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
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