★Rights sold: Croatia.
★Selected for Books at Berlinale 2023 (Co-Production Market)! Nominated for the 2023 Kresnik Award
★“I don’t know any woman who hasn’t at some point in her life doubted her own writing, her right to say what she thinks.” Author Dijana Matković is a prominent Slovenian essayist and critic. Her unique autofictional essay-novel, blending autobiographical fragments, social analysis, and poetic language, offers a profound dissection of the individual’s existential struggles in contemporary society.
★With penetrating insight, the novel depicts the struggles of individuals under 21st-century late capitalism, exploring class, identity, creative blockades, and community solidarity. It reveals pervasive pressures of survival and a call for mutual aid that resonates widely. As individuals seek expression and connection amidst systemic constraints, this book provides a potent literary response.
Rights sold： Croatia.

I have nowhere to go and nowhere to return to. Where should I go? Back to the apartment I haven't been able to afford for quite some time? Take another lap around the city with which I've long since said all there is to say? From here on out, there is nothing.

Dijana`s parents are from Yugoslavia, a country that no longer exists. Or: they are Serbs from Bosnia, living in Slovenia.
The book spans over 30 years of the protagonist's life. In the political sense, from the transition after the breakup of Yugoslavia and personally, from the age of eight to thirty-eight, from the moment when everything began to fall apart (the country, her parent's marriage, companies), until the creation of the book that we are reading.
“Once it was finished, the book we are reading was published. So, from Why I Don't Write?, I switched to Why I write. The book attracted unexpectedly positive responses.”　
The novel The Reason Why I Don't Write?: The Writer's Plight in the 21st Century is the first Slovenian book selected from 190 works for presentation at the Berlinale Books event. It was also nominated for the 2023 Kresnik Award.

WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK SPECIAL?
The universal theme of young people's struggle between life and dream can be located in every EU state and abroad.
Key words: PREJUDICES, INTOLERANCE, SOCIAL INJUSTICE, SOCIAL RIGHTS, POVERTY, SEXUAL HARRASMENT, 2nd GENERATION OF IMMIGRANTS, CULTURE AND MEDIA ENVIRONMENT, CAPITALISM.

Logline
SOCIAL INJUSTICE AND INTOLERANCE TO IMMIGRANTS: Dijana Matković tells a powerful story of searching for a room of her own in the late stages of capitalism.
SURVIVING WITHOUT BACKUP: How to survive in a world where you can’t pay rent, can’t afford to focus, be healthy or remain principled?
PREJUDICES, INTOLERANCE, IMMIGRANTS, SOCIAL INJUSTICE, POSITION OF WOMEN, EU CAPITALS: Dijana, a daughter of working-class immigrants, tells the story of her difficult childhood and adolescence.
CULTURAL SCENE: How she became a journalist and later a writer in a society full of prejudices, glass ceilings and obstacles.


Synopsis
•2ND GENERATION OF IMMIGRANTS: Dijana is a daughter of working-class Yugoslavian immigrants, Serbs from present-day Bosnia who came to Slovenia in the 1970s in search of a better future.
•POVERTY: When her parents get divorced, Dijana, her older sister and mother struggle to meet their basic needs.
•INTOLERANCE: She is ashamed of their poverty, her classmates bully her because of her immigrant status
•HELP: but is helped by a librarian who spots her writing talent.
•EXPENSIVE LIFE IN THE CAPITAL: When Dijana goes to secondary school, she moves in with her older sister who lives in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital. She takes on odd jobs to make ends meet.
•SEXUAL HARASSMENT: She finishes night school and graduates. Dijana writes for numerous newspapers but quits her jobs, either because she isn’t allowed to write the stories she wants or because of the bad working conditions or the blatant sexual harassment.
•LOST (YOUNG) GENERATION: She meets many ‘lost’ people of her generation along the way, who tell her their stories about precarious minimum wage jobs, lack of opportunities, expensive rent, etc.
•LONELINES: Due to the high rent in the capital, Dijana is forced to move to the countryside to her small hometown. She feels lonely there, struggles with anxiety and cannot write her book, because she is constantly under pressure to make a living.

Injustice, Class Consciousness, Solidarity

The autofictional, essay-based novel Echoes of Struggle: The Writer's Plight in the 21st Century draws on scenes from the author's life, heavily intertwined with social and literary reflection, to speak of the forces that prevent those in marginalized positions from existing and creating. Yet, the title could just as well be Why I Write, as it simultaneously demonstrates that injustices can be countered by transcending and merging identities into class consciousness and by creating a broader, supportive, and solidary community.

A Book That Touches and Challenges the World

The novel raises numerous questions and themes directed at the author as a creator: the (social) role of literature and the woman writer today, the power and powerlessness of writing, class and gender... As a born storyteller, she connects these to overarching themes of community or society and (cultural) politics today. As one of the most distinguished essayists of our time, her writing consistently stems from reflecting on her own position. She constructs her texts from autobiographical fragments of her daily life, in constant dialogue with other writers and texts, and from the world-open poetics of her personal writing. Through these, she explores the precarious position of the individual in late capitalism.

A novel of the here and now, a novel of 21st-century late capitalist society, for which Dijana Matković has found a language – open to pain, permeated with analytical doubt, and combative in its demand for truth.

DIJANA MATKOVIĆ
Born in 1984, she is an author, translator, publicist and the editor of the Disenz web portal. She is the author of a collection of short prose poems titled V imenu očeta (In The Name of the Father) (2013).