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Title: Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream by Dubravka Ugresic, Celia Hawkesworth ISBN: 0-670-86016-6 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: April, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Not quite on the mark
Comment: I certainly agree with the previous review that this is Ugresic's 'weakest' work. Otherwise, Ugresic is perhaps the greatest living Croatian prose writer. I actually read the Croatian original edition, titled "Americki fikcionar," and while I did enjoy many of the author's observations and insights, I often found her brooding over her plight tedious. While I agree that Ugresic was grossly mistreated and maligned for her anti-nationalist stance by the government-controlled media in Croatia, she left Croatia, or the former Yugoslavia, basically unscathed with at least some certainty of being able to build a new life elsewhere. This stands in contrast to the thousands of refugees who left this region with absolutely nothing and little hope of any secure future for themselves or their children. A vast majority of them were/are as equally blameless for their plight as Ugresic. In addition, I found the scene in which Ugresic tells a black homeless man in Central Park that she "is a nigger in her own country" somewhat pretentious to say the least. However repugnant the hyped-up nationalism of today's Croatia may be to Ugresic, her alienation is the result of personal choice, not of birth. Nonetheless, Ugresic's book is still worth reading, for if nothing else, it reflects the feelings of confusion and estrangement felt by many intellectuals from throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Rating: 4
Summary: Book of foreigner's impressions on USA
Comment: This is the weakest literary work of one of the respected contemporary writers from former Yugoslavia. While I simply LOVED Ms. Ugresic's book "In the Jaws of Life", this book of her impressions on life in America is not quite worthy of her talents. In many of Ms. Ugresic's stories I could see myself - foreigner in thie huge country of choices, weird characters, people who mean good, but always say the wrong thing. It took me many years to get the answers for which Ms. Ugresic is herself trying to find answers to in this work. I can only think: a) Ms. Ugresic has not been in USA long enough to learn the "rules of the game" and b) she simply made wrong choice of friends during her stay in USA (like that superficial guy Norman, mentioned in several of her stories). I only hope that Ms. Ugresic will find better life and nicer impressions during her current stay in Berlin. While I admire Ms. Ugresic's respect for both Danilo Kis and Ivo Andric (she quotes both of these writers in her book; first at the beginning and the second in the last story of her book) - I must admit that "Have a Nice Day" does not deserve comparison worth the works of Kis and Andric. Ms. Ugresic's simple way of storytelling simply clashes with complexity of thought of both Kis and Andric. I sincerely hope Ms. Ugresic will focus on issues that make her work really good. It is painfull to loose one's country. That pain however should never interfere with great talent this writer has. I am looking forward to Ms. Ugresic's new work which, I am sure, will get to the world the best of her.