Baba Yaga Laid an Egg: (Myths)

Through the voices of three contemporary women, Dubravka Ugresic retells the myth of Baba Yaga - one of the most famous stories in Russian and Eastern European mythology. Baba Yaga is a witch-like character who flies around on a giant mortar, kidnapping (and presumably eating) small children. She lives in a house on chicken feet. She is generally a terrifying figure, portrayed not only in literature but also film, animation and music throughout Russian culture. Dubravka Ugresic takes the story of Baba Yaga and weaves it into something completely fresh. The result is an extraordinary meditation on femininity, ageing, identity, secrets, storytelling and love.

About the Author :
Dubravka Ugresic was born in 1949 in Croatia. She worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar. She has published both novels and books of essays. Ugresic's essays have appeared in American (Context, The Hedgehog Review) and European newspapers and magazines (Vrij Nederland, Die Zeit, Die Welt Woche and many others). She teaches occasionally at American and European universities. Her books have been translated into more then twenty languages and she has received several major European literary awards. She is now based in Amsterdam and works as a freelance writer.

Review :
She is a writer to follow. A writer to be cherished. Ugresic has a unique tone of voice, a madcap wit and a lovely sense of the absurd. Ingenious. Praise for THE MINISTRY OF PAIN: Ugresic is sharp, funny and unfazed in the face of the little dictators who have torn apart her former country. Orwell would be proud. Praise for THE MINISTRY OF PAIN: Contains some of the most profound reflections on culture, memory and madness you wiill ever read. The message that old crones are the product of "long-lived, labyrinthine, fertile, profoundly misogynistic but also cathartic work of the imagination" is expressed with humour, eloquence and anger. Ugresic's retelling may be blisteringly postmodern in its execution but at its heart is a human warmth and even a silliness that infuses it with the sweet magic of storytelling. A book packed with intellectual surprises and emotional revelations. Reaffirms the glorious power of storytelling. A mirthlessly witty divertimento on female old age. Ugresic's meta-narrative sings with intelligence; it cryptic weirdness challenges the reader . . . These stories are a whirligig of outrageous invention. Astutely analytical of Balkan dystopia, beautifully written (and immaculately translated), dolefully humorous . . . Although this is the tale of three old Balkan Babushkas behaving badly, it is a grown-up novel with grown-up propositions; its humane vision of the world is driven by great imaginative impetus. The tradition of upside down, modernist myth making or ironical fable has freed her tongue. Skittish at times, affectionately comic, and lavish with improbable and ingenious fairy tale plotting, her handling of the genre is deft and light.