Samira Kentrić’s Graphic Novel “Balkanalia: Growing up in the Age of Transition” and His Hybrid Poetics

Abstract

The article analyzes the autobiographical graphic novel of the Slovenian artist, illustrator and performer Samira Kentrić (b. 1976) “Balkanalia: growing up in the age of transition” (2015), in particular the hybrid nature of the genre of this work and its poetics. In this example, the genre incorporates elements of autobiographical comics strip, comics book about the war (in Bosnia), family album, graphic poetry, political illustration, philosophical parable, etc. Visual and textual narratives are designed to reflect the transculturality, the hybridity of the space of the former Yugoslavia, the territory between Bosnia and Slovenia, the two homelands of the protagonist, which became separate states during her growing up. The aesthetic layers are including images of classical artistic heritage, surrealism, popular, ethnic culture, as well as subcultural references (rock and punk music, graffiti), which the artist transforms into a unique fusion through postmodern techniques of irony and deconstruction.