More Nobody's Home Reviews

As Dubravka Ugresic’s reading tour winds down—her final event is a conversation with Brigid Hughes on Tuesday at 7pm at Melville House Press—her review coverage continues to expand.

Most recently Booklit gave the book a long, thoughtful, positive review, my favorite part of which is the opening:

I’ve been interested in their forthcoming output for a while now and have deliberately held off buying Nobody’s Home, published last year in the United Kingdom by Telegram Books, because I never really liked the cover.

So, first a few words on this edition. It’s a hardback, the image and text printed straight on as there’s no dust jacket. It’s always good to see a bit of cover kudos for the translator – Ellen Elias-Bursac, translating from the Croatian – and the book doesn’t let us down here. Being someone who likes a bit of uniformity to their books, I’ll be looking forward to seeing how other titles from Open Letter stand together.

No offense to Telegram, but I like our cover better as well. And if you haven’t been following Booklit, you definitely should. It’s filling the huge gap opening up as newspapers continue to dismantle their book sections. . . .

Front Table at Seminary Co-op also gave Nobody’s Home a nice review over the weekend, one that captures some of the fun of seeing Dubravka in person (she read at 57th Street a couple weeks ago):

During the discussion following her reading, a member of the audience—none other than Adam Zagajewski—asked her what she is nostalgic for. She replied, “For cottage cheese, and sour cream.” The only real cottage cheese and sour cream for her are the ones that can be found at the markets in Zagreb. Listening to her, it seemed that in speaking of her personal experience she was capturing much of the essence of the book. This answer about the cottage cheese speaks to her writing about what it means to live in exile. She is a world traveler, an exile of her homeland, but no matter what has changed politically and culturally, there is always that longing of émigrés for the familiarity of the native.