Thank You for Not Reading is a biting critique of book publishing: agents, subagents, and scouts, supermarket-like bookstores, Joan Collins, book fairs that have little to do with books, and authors promoted because of sex appeal instead of merit.  Nowadays, the best strategy for young authors wanting to publish is to become famous in some other capacity first. Ugrešić argues that the cultural forces like listicles and celebrity book clubs, the publishing machine neglects literature in favor of accessible, entertaining books for the masses.

One of the most interesting and paradoxical comparisons coming out of In this work, Ugrešić dissects book culture and draws comparisons between the art of socialist realism (as prescribed by the Soviets) and the nature of the contemporary marketplace to produce and promote art that appeals to everyone.

The Neustadt Prize winning Dubravka Ugrešić  joins us from her home in Croatia to read from and discuss her newest work. Audiences may remember Dubravka’s visit to City of Asylum in 2018, an evening filled with her wit and humor and one the City of Asylum staff still talk about as one of our favorites. In conversation with Nina Herzog from the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Dubravka Ugrešić is the author of seven works of fiction, including The Museum of Unconditional Surrender and Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, along with six collections of essays. She has won, or been shortlisted for, more than a dozen prizes, and she received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (the “American Nobel Prize”) for her body of work.

This program is part of the Pittsburgh International Literary Festival (LitFest '22). Learn more about the LitFest lineup.

Dubravka Ugrešić: Thank you for Not Reading