Życie na wyspach. Chorwacka współczesna proza insularna
Life on Islands: Contemporary Croatian Insular Fiction

Author(s): Anna Boguska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Croatian Literature
ISSN: 1234-9852
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: contemporary Croatian fiction; island; insular fiction; Croatian literature – 20th century; Croatian literature – 21st century; melancholy; utopia; Renato Baretić; Senko Karuza; Ranko Marinković; Damir Miloš; Slobodan Novak; Pavao Pavličić; Petar Šegedin
Summary/Abstract: This book is devoted to the study of meanings and functions of the island in contemporary Croatian insular fiction. It is also an attempt to encourage the rejection of simplistic, trivial, strictly tourist representation of the country. The study focuses on eight contemporary works of fiction (seven novels and one collection of short stories written between the 1950s and 2000s) set on the islands off the eastern coast of the Adriatic. They are analysed applying Paul Ricoeur’s method of exploring the symbol, as proposed in “The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought”, the concluding chapter of his volume The Symbolism of Evil. Following his idea, the author of this study indicates four symbols: the desert, the prison, the theatrum mundi and the garden, by means of which she tries to approach the main symbol: the island. She elaborates on each of them on the basis of two different books, proposing two diverse interpretations of the notion in focus and uncovering attendant human experience they convey.

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