The Culture of Lies shows us the banality and brutality of nationalism and the way that nationalistic ideology permeates every pore of life. Dubravka Ugresic's ascerbic and penetrating essays cover everything from politics to daily routine, from public to private life. With a diverse and unusual perspective, she writes about memory, soap operas, the destruction of everyday life, kitsch, aggression against people's own "brothers", the conformity of intellectuals, propaganda and censorship, the strategies of human manipulation, and the walls of Europe, which she argues never really did fall.

First published in Holland, then in Germany and Croatia, The Culture of Lies has been enthusiastically received in Europe, earning Ugresic two prestigious awards: the Charles Veillon European Essay Prize in 1996 and the Dutch Culture of Resistance Prize in 1997. Shot through with sarcasm and satire, it is one of the most intelligent and lucid accounts of an appalling episode in history. In the tradition of Milan Kundera and Karl Kraus, The Culture of Lies is a gesture of intellectual resistance by a writer branded a "traitor" and a "witch" in Croatia.