A MUZZLE FOR WITCHES, probably the last time we'll get to hear from a feminist ikon

A MUZZLE FOR WITCHES
DUBRAVKA UGREŠIĆ (tr. Ellen Elias-Bursać)
Open Letter Books
$14.95 trade paper, available tomorrow

August 2025: 40% discount on all Open Letter titles written or translated by female-identifying artists. (Discount is applied automatically at checkout on publisher's website and applies to all hardcover, paperback, and ebook editions.)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature As with the rest of her literary career, Dubravka Ugresić's final work, A Muzzle for Witches, is uncategorizable. On its surface, the book is an conversation with the literary critic Merima Omeragić, covering topics such as "Women and the Male Perspective," "The Culture of (Self)Harm," and "The Melancholy of Vanishing."

But the book is more than a simple interview: It's a roadmap of the literary world, exploring the past century and all of its violence and turmoil—especially in Yugoslavia, Ugresić's birth country—and providing a direction for the future of feminist writing.

One of the greatest thinkers of the past hundred years, Ugresić was one-of-a-kind, whose novels and literary essays pushed the bounds of form and content, and A Muzzle for Witches offers the chance to see her at her most raw, and most playful.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: "Raw and playful" are not frequently paired in a publisher's synopsis. In this outraged, affronted growl, they're two of the best words for Ugresić's œuvre as a whole, and this last distilled, refined-to-purity last work in particular. Her métier was the essay, I've even said before the screed, and this one-sitting book is a great way to get one's eye in to the tenor of her work.

It's quite an achievement to call out, I'd venture to say even to take down, the sexist, fascist Establishment that's controlled...notionally, in her case...the course of both life and career, while being amusing. Mordantly so, but amusing nonetheless. Author Dubravka does this trick regularly. I'm very impressed by this because it means her focus is not on her topic of outrage. The outrage is there, but unlike the literature of grievance that grows so stale so very quickly. Jeremiads are so deeply tedious as anything except a light seasoning on top of one's regular reading.

The title of these collected interviews with a literary critic from Croatia, Merima Omeragić, is a call-out to the (male-dominated) Croatian establishment's characterization of her as a "witch" when her anti-war attitudes got her hounded into exile in 1993. "Muzzle me, you dickheads?" one can hear her thinking in this title. I do not know if she chose it, but it certainly captures her acerbic, flensing-knife wit.

What we, as a literary society, lost on her 2023 death, was an acute observer...better to say "witness" of the Ship of Fools we're riding on. Dubravka Ugrešić saw it from her berth in Second Class, where she was assigned, but never, ever stayed. Her head was the Imperial Suite's sole occupant. She saw right through the oppressive systems designed to reduce her to a compliant drone, a life support system for a uterus.

We need this voice as a society. The women who vote in the 2024 US elections should read this, and other feminists of an earlier generation, because their privileges are not secure when their very rights to bodily autonomy are being rolled back at a great rate of speed.

DEAR CIS(GENDER) PEOPLE: A Guide to Trans Allyship and Empathy, when you wonder "what do They want" best ask Them

DEAR CIS(GENDER) PEOPLE: A Guide to Trans Allyship and Empathy
KENNY ETHAN JONES
DK Books
$24.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A powerful call to arms to empower cisgender people to be better allies, blending memoir, detailed research, and interviews.

The trans experience is all too often the subject of fierce debate in the media and online. While we’re having more and more conversations about the trans experience, the stark reality is that hate crimes against the trans community have quadrupled over the past five years and that two in five trans young people have attempted suicide.

But behind the shock headlines and the distressing statistics, what does it really mean to be trans?

In this powerful, extensively researched, and deeply personal book, Kenny Ethan Jones, a trans activist and writer, offers an authentic and in-depth insight into the trans experience. From gender dysphoria to surgery, from being outed to finding love and considering parenthood, Kenny Ethan Jones draws on his own life and the stories of others from the trans and nonbinary communities to create discussion around the complexities and reality of the trans experiences in today’s society.

Dear Cis(Gender) People is a powerful call to arms, equipping people of every gender with the tools to step forward as allies in order to bring about meaningful change. Through acting and speaking out, we can create a safer, fairer world for trans people—a world in which all of us can exist as our most authentic selves and celebrate who we are without fear.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I can not say this loudly, often, or long enough: PAY.

ATTENTION.

TO.

WHAT.

THEY SAY THEY WILL DO.

You can start here, with this book made up of trans peoples' words. It's addressed at all cis people, a group I am very much part of. I needed to hear these trans voices. These voices are not heard in any systemic way even in the QUILTBAG community. Trans people can and should speak up...and all too often, risk the direst imaginable consequences for doing so. I think the best way to learn is to ask, and if the silence imposed on trans people in F2F reality is blocking that avenue, then we can read! This book marries asking with reading because Author Kenny Ethan Jones has spoken to his fellow trans folk and used their own words to address us cis people, regardless of our sexual identities, about the nature of being trans.

The ball is in our court, cis folk. We possess the information, now we need to listen to what trans people want us to know. There is no more fig-leaf for our ignorance. Now it is a choice to remain ignorant. I think almost everyone who reads this blog, being readers themselves, will take this chance to lift the veil of unknowing and see what the most Othered people in the QUILTBAG rainbow of identities want to get in the way of support and acceptance.

I hope this compact, unchallenging read will make its way into your reading this #PrideMonth. There are so many ways to offer the gift of acknowledgment. The price is, honestly, negligble to the giver; the gift is precious to the receiver, as the stories told here will show you. Please do the whole angry, shouting world this favor:

Sit and listen to what your Othered siblings would appreciate you offering to them.

Big treat for 11 June 2013!

A BIG TREAT today! Superreviewer Nataliya talks Goodreads, reviews, and Being Awesome over at http://tinyurl.com/lvfkn6c Shelf Inflicted! Come one come all! Learn the secrets of a Russian immigrant who went through medical school, did an internship, and is now a resident...all while reading and writing reviews of great and telling beauty.

I am such a slacker.