Katunarić Dražen: Infernet i drugi tekstovi

Dražen Katunarić: Infernet and other texts

"The world is dust. According to the media, the world is not worth more than dust. When a man throws away old newspapers, stuffing them in a recycling container or in plastic bags - it is a scene that symbolizes his past days on earth, the days he spent in the company of the media. He testifies to the vanity of his existence. All the faces of politicians, actresses, singers, entertainers, one-time stars from the front pages of newspapers seem to be caricatures of his fake smiles scattered in the wind, he still remembers old headlines, some photos and writings, everything he read: for example, from this summer, Vesna Pusić who slipped off the road and her dead dog, the funeral of the murdered Dino Pokrovac, and Globus's expert styling team commenting on how fashionable some of the mourners looked at the funeral, and some cheap beauties the people will go crazy because they are floating on the flying carpets of reality... That moment of media compression and "bulk cargo" (D. Dragojević) shows the extent to which the media fed and shaped him without him even being aware of it, because, well, he was being filled with a mixture of data, sensations, obscenity and challenges, voyeurism and crime, death and exoticism a person throws everything he watched on television into a big, green box, as he does with newspapers, which proves that his need for information and entertainment, in the long afternoons and evenings of life, occupies a low position from the point of view of future trash, because otherwise he would spend his time on something more precious, more useful, on something he cares about, the trace of which he will not throw away, like books, photographs, souvenirs, images...

However, this realization will not affect a possible turn or a different decision. If he were to cancel his subscription or disconnect from the network, turn off all the screens in the house, television, internet, cell phone, today's man would probably feel infinitely alone and damned abandoned - no matter how many meaningless advertisements, say, "With you through life" (Konzum), "Put do srca" (Podravka), flags, ribbons, vain and cute sycophants - that's the kind of society we live in. The media are like fast food that can be chewed at the moment, which want to convince us that a lot of important things have happened, and there are media that are circling around, because they want to take over place. He would otherwise be dead or without an echo, so the constant tapage, fire and noise, breaking news make him new."

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This book can be read as a collection of essays, stories and travelogues, in which the boundaries between genres are soft and melting. Dražen Katunarić is one of the most interesting Croatian storytellers and essayists. (Rade Jarak)

Dražen Katunarić (1954, Zagreb). Poet, novelist, essayist. Chief editor of the magazine Europski glasnik. So far, he has published more than twenty books: "Marble Bakho" (poetry, 1983), "Pučina" (poetry, 1988), "House of Decadence" (essays, 1992), "Heaven/Earth" (poetry, 1993), "Church, Street, Zoo" (prose, 1994), "The Story of the Cave" (essay prose, 1998), "Glue for a Nightingale" (poetry, 1998), "Read Heart" (poetry, 1999), "Fatal Images" (novel, 2002), "Tiger Fat and Other Stories" (prose, 2005), "Lyra/Delirium" (poetry, 2006) "The Beggar Girl" (novel, 2009), "Infernet", short stories, 2010), "Kronos" (poetry, 2011), "Once upon a time there was a night" (selected poetry, 2015).  It has been translated into French, Italian, English, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, German, Portuguese.

Get He is the recipient of "Brank's Awards" (1984), "Tin Ujević" Awards (1994), Matica Hrvatska Awards (1999), "European Circle" Awards (1999), "Menada" Awards (2003, Macedonia), "Steiermärkische Sparkasse" Awards (2009, Austria) and "Balcanica" (2015, Romania). The French Ministry of Culture awarded him the order of Knight of Arts and Letters.