In the Jaws of Life

Front Cover
Northwestern University Press, 1988 - 252 pages
This is the first American publication of three works by one of Eastern Europe's most original and inventive writers. Dubravka Ugresic's In the Jaws of Life and Other Stories collects two short novels and a group of short stories grounded in fact and informed by fancy. The title novel, Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life, charts the life of a typist for a lonely hearts column. Laid out like a sewing pattern, with instructions, diagrams, and helpful hints in the margin, it juxtaposes the cliches and trite advice of stereotypical women's magazines and popular culture with the genuine despair of the marginalized heroine. The short stories collected in Life is a Fairy Tale (Metaterxies) draw on the author's academic background to produce wickedly funny parodies and droll pastiches of such writers as Daniil Kharms and Gogol. Whether depicting the anonymous lives of small characters in big cities or rewriting great works from a distinctly irreverent perspective, Ugresic is fresh, entertaining, and consistently surprising.

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Contents

Life is a Fairy Tale
145
Life is a Fairy Tale
163
Who Am I?
179
Copyright

4 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

Anka asked Aunt Sissy Barbara Branka breath Bublik budgie Charles Boyer cigarette coffee cream cream bun Daniil Kharms door dream drink Driver Dugo Selo erotic everything eyes face feel felt finger flat floor girl glance glass hair hand happened head hot dog Hulk hyperrealism Intellectual Irena Irena's wonderful Jozo Katica kiss kitchen Konstantin Vaginov Kovalić Lidija lips literary literature looked Madame Bovary Marianna married Matić Monsieur Fiddler morning mother mouth nervous neighbour never novel Oberiu Okay opened peas Petar Petrović prose pulled round Russian Russian avant-garde sighed smile smoke someone soul Stara Pazova staring Steffie Speck stood story suddenly tell There's thing thought Steffie took tram turned Ugresić Ulla Vanja Vavka Vinko voice walked watch What's Wiener Schnitzel window wine woman women write

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About the author (1988)

Michael Henry Heim was born in New York on January 21, 1943. He received an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and a doctorate in Slavic languages from Harvard University. He was fluent in Czech, French, German, Italian, Russian and Serbian/Croatian and possessed a reading knowledge of six more languages. He became a professor of Slavic languages at the University California at Los Angeles in 1972 and served as chairman of the Slavic languages department from 1999 to 2003. He was known for his translations of works by Gunter Grass, Milan Kundera, Thomas Mann and Anton Chekhov. He received numerous awards for his work including the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize in 2005, the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation in 2009, and the PEN Translation Prize in 2010. He died from complications of melanoma on September 29, 2012 at the age of 69.

Bibliographic information

TitleIn the Jaws of Life
Volume 4 of Literature in translation
Volume 4 of Writings from an unbound Europe
AuthorDubravka Ugrešić
Translated byCelia Hawkesworth, Michael Henry Heim
ContributorAndrew Wachtel
Editionreprint
PublisherNorthwestern University Press, 1988
Original fromthe University of California
DigitizedMar 13, 2008
ISBN0810111004, 9780810111004
Length252 pages
  
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