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Magical Realism as the Poetological Framework for the Concept of the Other and the Different in the Croatian 21st Century Novel

The poetical determinants of magical realism, although several elements had already been present in Croatian literature from at least the time of the generation of the „Borgesian“ writers, and also earlier, have not been the subject of more in-depth research until recently. And yet, novelistic prose in Croatia, under the influence of similar movements in the World- literature scene, is still a witness to its appearance. In our investigation we will research the elements of magical realism in relation to the concepts and constructs of the Other and the Different in the corpus of these recent Croatian novels: Baba Jaga je snijela jaje (Baba Jaga Laid an Egg) (2008) by Dubravke Ugrešić, Črna mati zemla (Black Mother the Earth) (2013) and Ciganin ali najlijepši (Gypsy but the Most Beautiful) (2016) by Kristijan Novak as well as Prevaranti: Iskupljenje (The Cheaters: Redemption) (2016) by Dorotea Vučić. Literary-theoretical approaches have linked magical realism (since its beginnings in Latin American Literatures) with statements on the Other and the Different (Postcolonial approaches), and in this research we will present how elements of the same function within the context of the 21st century Croatian novel. In her novel, D. Ugrešić uses the theme of aging in the post-transitional nations of Eastern Europe to present the context of the construction of the Other and the Different, realised with the aid of magical-realist elements and characteristics. K. Novak presents a psycho-socially traumatised child in his novel Črna mati zemla as well as the Romani community in Ciganin, ali najljepši. D. Vučić also uses this same ethnic group as her theme in her novel, which among all these cited novels is closest to the genre of magical realism, yet her Other is the former collective state of South Slavs, which is literarily constructed as a magical space titled Tromeđe (Tripoint), with emphasis on historical precedents allowing its recognition. After the topic of magical realism is discussed, through a reading of the most important theoretical texts, as a mode and genre as well as its relationship to realism and the fantastic, the presence of these elements in the aforementioned texts will be placed under scrutiny, so that after this, with the aforementioned poetological framework, the concepts and constructs of the Other and the Different will be investigated. Magical realism is recognised as a mode which deconstructs dominant metanarratives (familial, social, political, founded in tradition or actual, universal and local). Its incorporation into the mimetic narrative of novelistic prose texts informs the entirely actual social engagement of these authors, emphasised, in fact by these aforementioned concepts. The deconstruction of dominant metanarratives and the focus of the differences in human experience and the concept of reality, as well as the approaches of the magical realistic mode, are considered here in the poetics of the 21st Croatian novel.

Croatian novel, post-transition, magical realism, Other, Otherness, Dubravka Ugrešić, Kristijan Novak, Dorotea Vučić

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