From Border to Icon
From Border to Icon

Author(s): Biljana Dojčinović
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Serbian Literature
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Summary/Abstract: The first novel by the contemporary Serbian woman author Ljubica Arsić, Čuvari kazačke ivice (Guardians of the Kazak Border), was published in 1988 and reprinted in 1997 and 2002. However, due to a set of various unfavorable circumstances, it remained almost unknown to a wider audience until the second reprint. The novel’s relative unfamiliarity may partly be attributed to the fact that at the time of its first publication there existed no appropriate theoretical language or framework to adequately account for its nomadic spirit. Unlike Guardians of the Kazak Border, Arsić’s second novel, Ikona (Icon), published in 2001, aroused immediate interest amongst readers, critics and the media, winning one prize when only in draft and another after publication. There was a lapse of thirteen years between the publication of these novels, during which time important political, ideological and economic changes took place. Although it seems tempting to ascribe the differences between them to this fact, the situation is much more complicated and interesting.

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