El Museo de la Rendición Incondicional

In the aftermath of the Balkan wars, the city of Berlin is brought to life by the influx of expats, fighting to preserve what remains of their culture and of a nation that has been wiped off the map, while replacing everything that once they knew by the new and unknown. For those whose life must fit into a suitcase, memories become their most important possession, but sometimes they take on strange meaning. Dubravka Ugresic thus recomposes the life of her mother through the photos found in the back of a closet, in an old leather bag. And she, at the same time, also her own story: her years as a teacher in Berlin, where she shared an apartment with three young Indian women; her nightly get-togethers with her friends for dinner and tarot card reading; a trip to Lisbon, where she was loaded with luggage, but with absolutely nothing, depending on how she looked at herself... A collage of memories that the author fuses to achieve a sublime portrait of the loneliness of the exiled.