Changing Pieces

Među fjordove i gejzire, vrletne stijene i zastrašujuće ponore, smještena je priča sestara blizanki, Halldore i Sigridur, i njihove obitelji. Priča počinje opisom pokopa Sigridur i tugom ispunjenih dana preživjele sestre. Valter Hugo Mae vrlo nam živo i slikovito pripovijeda o nestabilnoj majci, koja za smrt kćeri krivi drugu kćer te je konstantnim ranjavanjem namjerno kažnjava, nanoseći joj bol. To je i priča o odnosu oca i kćeri, koji dane provode čitajući poeziju te u njoj pronalaze sve važne odgovore, snagu i smisao života. Znakovit je to početak romana, kojim Halla opisuje trenutak sestrine smrti, ujedno označen i kao novi početak života. Nakon njezine smrti, preživjela blizanka suočava se s vlastitim unutarnjim borbama, kao i s okolinom i neprihvaćanjem obitelji. Loš odnos s majkom kompenzira nježnim trenucima s ocem, a kasnije i kroz ljubavni odnos s Einarom, prožetim dubokim osjećajima. Einar, osebujni samotnjak kojeg su se sestre kao djevojčice plašile, za sobom vuče tajnovitu...

The aim of the article is to analyze the connection between non-places (as defined by Marc Augé) and unhomeliness (as understood by Homi Bhabha) in Cacophonie by Ken Bugul. The Senegalese writer has been best-known for her depiction of a postcolonial subject, torn between the Western and the African world. However, her last novel thus far, which concentrates on the trajectory of a Senegalese protagonist living in Benin, sheds new light on the notion of migrant identity. The heroine, Sali, does not belong anywhere. Just like most previous Bugulian protagonists, she is always in transit: her identity is one of an uprooted, fragmented subject. By examining the protagonist’s behavior in a public, archetypal non-place (an airport, a plane), as well in a private place (her house), the study strives to show Sali’s perpetual state of unhomeliness.Keywords: unhomeliness, non-place, postcolonial subject, Ken BugulThe postcolonial subject’s experience of migration and homecoming constitutes one o...

“More liquor,” said the dark-skinned man holding out his glass.“No more liquor,” said the fat man grabbing the bottle from the counter. “Indian dance now; liquor later.”“Liquor,” said the dark-skinned man stretching for the bottle.“Afterwards,” said the fat man, shielding the bottle behind his vast bulk. “Now Indian dance.” He waggled his hips and his flabby belly shook. “Now Indian dance out front. Everyone watch Indian dancing.”The dark-skinned man stopped and stared at his fat counterpart, stared at him as a famished, skittish dog might at a person chewing a sandwich in a roadside bar. The fat man waggled his hips once more, his arms upraised, the bottle in one hand and a shot glass he was drinking from in the other. The dark-skinned man chuckled.“You like that, eh?” said the fat man. His flabby jowls wobbled with laughter, his eyes vanishing between puffy little lids. “Off you go, Indian. Bwana want to see Indian dance. Me bwana, you Indian, monkey.”“Not monkey.” The Indian shook h...

Three decades after American author Edgar Allan Poe laid down the foundations for the detective genre in the 1840s with his “tales of ratiocination,” native detective stories began to appear on Russian literary scene. Among them were those written by Aleksandr Andreevich Shkljarevskij today known as “the father of Russian detective fiction.” This article provides a short overview of Poe’s literary influence as well as of the conditions that brought about the onset of Russian detective fiction. It offers an extensive comparative analysis of short stories by the mentioned “fathers” and identifies many similarities in their poetics. Finally, by looking into the characteristics of American Romanticism and Russian Realism that constitute the sociocultural backgrounds of the authors, it proposes answers to questions stemming from the difference in the aspect of analysis they emphasize. Keywords: 19th century Russian detective fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, Aleksandr Andreevich Shkljarevskij, soci...

Since the dawn of history, women have always been subjected to and condemned by men’s will; their choices and power have been limited by men’s authority and domination in patriarchal societies due to their gender. This paper examines Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters and Parinoush Saniee’s The Book of Fate and demonstrates a reciprocal relationship between cultural capital and women’s subordination in the marriage field, the analysis of which will be based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of field, capital, and habitus. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts as well as the contextual analysis of the selected novels, the findings of this paper indicate that women’s submissiveness, present in different patriarchal societies throughout history, is the outcome of men’s use of culture as a sort of capital to retain and reproduce their power and domination in all fields, even those related to women, including the field of marriage. Keywords: Pierre Bourdieu, field, cultura...