The Culture of Lies is one of the most intelligent and lucid accounts
of an appalling episode in history. It shows us the banality and
brutality of nationalism and the way that nationalistic ideology
permeates every pore of life. Ugresic's acerbic and penetrating essays
cover everything from politics to daily routine, from public to private
life.
With a diverse and unusual perspective, she writes about memory, soap
operas, the destruction of everyday life, kitsch, the conformity of
intellectuals, propaganda and censorship, the strategies of human
manipulation and the walls of Europe which, she argues, never really did
fall.
Shot through with irony and sadness, satirical protest and bitter
melancholy, The Culture of Lies is a gesture of intellectual
resistance by a writer branded "a traitor" and "a witch" in Croatia.
