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Neorealism in Serbian Prose of the 1990S: Its Development and Transformations (Essay)
Vladimir Arsenijevic's first novel In the Hold (U potpalublju) was published in 1994, in the middle of the last Balkan war. Nobody expected that the first novel of an anonymous aouthor would win the prestigious NIN Literary Award. And yet Arsenijevic got it. The award, as well as a very warm critical reception of the book, implied that something new had happened in Serbian literature, which had been up to then characterized by postmodern non-mimetic-poetics. In the Hold can be seen as a new beginning: there is a huge discrepancy between postmodern poetics and the neorealistic poetics of Arsenijevic's novel. To begin with, the novel lacks metafictional consciousness as well as a "subtle dialogue" with the writer's personal library. Arsenijevic describes contemporary events, and his text is based on an experience that is common to all of his Serbian readers. In the Hold is, therefore, a realistic novel. The word "realistic" is used not only as an opposition to "fantastic" but also as a hint that makes a connection between Arsenijevic's novel and Realism--the dominant literary trend of the mid-19th century. First of all, one can recognize that Arsenijevic's primary intention is the representation of totality. Namely, the novel is the first part of the planned series entitled Cloaka Maxima, the cycle of novels that were supposed to depict the totality of Serbian society in the 1990's.
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