Slovenia emerged from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 following a brief skirmish that prefigured the Balkan conflicts that persist to this day. Part of one empire or another for centuries, Slovenia was denied a cultural identity of its own. Its writers, however, insisted on writing in their native tongue, thus keeping Slovenian culture alive in the written word. The confused, confusing questions of Europe, ethnicity, empire, and autonomy are often only backdrop to what may of these writers have sought to foreground, namely, an attention to private life and its attendant sorrows and joy. In their work Slovenian authors still insist upon fidelity to a personal dialogue that, far from delaying these tragedies, in fact redeems them. Such poignant, reverent pleas for intimacy amid destruction may be the hallmark of most engaging writing in Central Europe, from which Slovenia is a crucial, distinctive voice.
