Critically acclaimed experimental, literary fiction by the famous Croatian exile author.

This is a deeply East European novel in flavour reminiscent of Kundera and Borges. Through weaving together fragments, stories, and diaries Dubravka Ugresic, a prize-winning novelist in the former Yugoslavia, captures the world of a group of characters living in Berlin and Lisbon. Ugresic convincingly brings to life a world and characters preoccupied by questions of exile, nationalism, angels, parables, the Berlin zoo, the layers of meaning in one's past and future frozen by the camera. Underpinned by a calm note of tragedy. The Museum of Unconditional Surrender is a beautifully written novel, both bitter and funny in tone.

The Museum of Unconditional Surrender -- by the renowned Yugoslavian writer Dubravka Ugresic--begins in the Berlin Zoo, with the contents of Roland the Walrus's stomach displayed beside his pool (Roland died in August, 1961). These objects--a cigarette lighter, lollipop sticks, a beer-bottle opener, etc.--like the fictional pieces of the novel itself, are seemingly random at first, but eventually coalesce, meaningfully and poetically.

'Unconditional Surrender' is a satire on the English class system. The writer takes a dig at the way the ruling class and their sense of entitlement, even when the country is in a global conflict, can plan through the bureaucracy to make their way into the far less dangerous and more comfortable theatres of war.

"Splendidly ambitious . . . A brilliant, enthralling spread of story-telling and high-velocity reflections. In her indignation and in her sorrow Ugresic speaks for many people, many experiences. She is a writer to follow. A writer to be cherished." Susan Sontag"

A new look at the drama that lay behind the end of the war in the Pacific Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender that formally ended the war in the Pacific brought to a close one of the most cataclysmic engagements in history. Behind it lay a debate that had been raging for some weeks prior among American military and political leaders. The surrender fulfilled the commitment that Franklin Roosevelt had made in 1943 at the Casablanca conference that it be "unconditional." Though readily accepted as policy at the time, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 support for unconditional surrender wavered, particularly among Republicans in Congress, when the bloody campaigns on Iwo Jima and Okinawa made clear the cost of military victory against Japan. Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 had been one thing; the war in the pacific was another. Many conservatives favored a negotiated surrender. Though this was the last time American forces would impose surrender unconditionally, questions surrounding it continued through the 1950s and 1960s--with the Korean and Vietnam Wars--when liberal and conservative views reversed, including over the definition of "peace with honor." The subject was revived during the ceremonies surrounding the 50th anniversary in 1995, and the Gulf and Iraq Wars, when the subjects of exit strategies and "accomplished missions" were debated. Marc Gallicchio reveals how and why the surrender in Tokyo Bay unfolded as it did and the principle figures behind it, including George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur. The latter would effectively become the leader of Japan and his tenure, and indeed the very nature of the American occupation, was shaped by the nature of the surrender. Most importantly, Gallicchio reveals how the policy of unconditional surrender has shaped our memory and our understanding of World War II.

A funny and cynical collection of essays, observations, and sketches denouncing the perversions of political and cultural life in Croatia.