After three collections of poems (“Sama”, “U podnožju neba” and “Ljubavne pjesme”) and three prose works (“Globalno usijanje”, “Na Diogenovu putu” and “Manifest humanosti”), publicist and poet Elia Pekica Pagon has treated the Croatian literary audience with yet another valuable work – a book of essays called “Oči našeg vremena” (“Eyes of Our Times”).
Her seventh book, this is a collection of socially engaged essays written between 2008 and 2016, in which she gives uncommonly interesting and shrewd insights about the time and space in which we live – exposing social processes, noting phenomena, naming trends and giving an informed critique of many problems of modern society – to which we must not remain indifferent, because they concern our society as a whole. The author’s essays in “Oči našeg vremena” sharpen the image of modern society, making it more visible and legible in all its causalities.
What reviewers said about the book (excerpts)
“The poet in Elia Pekica Pagon recognizes the pyramid-structured hierarchy and opposes it, regardless of whether it is the bureaucratic consciousness of the ordinary employee, the hierarchical awareness of the followers of this or that party, employees in a global corporation or an equity holder who is impersonating an initiator and benefactor.
“Her detective-like analysis reveals the tendency in detail – without large-scale sociological or political interventions and without spectacular scientific methods which, in the end, actually speak only of themselves, and generally ignore the subject of the research.
“In this sense, Elia Pekica Pagon teaches us how to simply watch and from this simplicity draw conclusions relating to the entire community. She teaches us to recognize details and situations that are proof of our abandonment of the values we should follow. She shows us the deceptiveness of the (virtual) worlds that offer themselves to us on the palm of our hand.
“The author is particularly opposed to our passive acceptance of the walls that are built around our bodies and our minds, the passivity produced in us through the seduction and manipulation of the mass-media. She opposes the world in which facts about someone or something, brought in a fraction of a second to our palm by some algorithm of some search engine, are simply taken for granted.
It is especially important to emphasize that this is an author who is trying simultaneously to walk both sides of the world – the left and the right – who is trying to look at phenomena, unencumbered with the worldview of this or that political option. This is a person who has not subscribed to any ‘instructions for use’ issued by any party or ideology.
“Oči našeg vremena is a book with lovely lines that bear witness to the times, but also present thoughts, feelings and ways of perceiving certain phenomena, the human community, and the world of a poet well versed in contemporary advertising systems, public relations, the marketing business, and modern systems of communication in general.” (Prof. Sead Alić, PhD)
“The author is already well-known to the cultural and general public as a publicist who, for years now, has persistently and systematically reflected on contemporary occurrences, processes and phenomena, which we create, such as they are, through our action or inaction. Among the vast human and business structures and relationships, Elia sees those bits that, figuratively speaking, don’t fit in, but extrude, aesthetically ruining the ideal image that is striven for, causing far-reaching ethical and moral consequences.
“With sharp optics our author focuses on and zooms in on these deviations, separates them, shines light on them, makes them visible, reveals their causes and effects, helps us understand them, and awakens in us a critical awareness. Without exception and in every example, she highlights the universal ideals of good, honesty, compassion, tolerance, freedom, equality, commitment to each other, solidarity and humanity (her previous book was actually called Manifesto of Humanity). She doesn’t label people themselves, but rather the manifestation of their destructive gallop and adoration of the omnipotent deity of our times – the material world. In fact, with this book of contemplations, the author helps us to re-discover again how to make the world a better and more beautiful place for all. Should I repeat that this principle is: man comes first, not matter and power.
“As a marketing expert, Elia also reflects on specific strategies in the area of business interests and effects, without making compromises even here: not richer companies, not more powerful owners – but a happier world. For Elia, this is not a utopia, it is not an unattainable ideal, but rather hope, and an honest objective.” (Mira Ćurić, MSc. Educ.)
“Elia Pekica’s approach is knowingly and intentionally naive and romantic. With her book ‘Oči našeg vremena’, Elia reveals to us what we experience every day, but nevertheless pass by, unfortunately, with closed eyes and a cold heart.
“In a lovely way Elia has gathered and related her own experiences, as well as many of our experiences and knowledge about people, our times and the environment in which we live. And that’s where its value lies – it shapes, verbalizes and symbolizes the obvious, everyday truths.
“This collection of essays painfully confronts us with the everyday hypocrisy with which we are faced – with the superficial world of deception, demagoguery and populism, the ‘virtuous, new world’ offered to us by ‘Big Brother’, the consumer system of commodity-money relations in which modesty, frugality and loyalty are faults, not virtues; where noise conquers self-abnegation, where kitsch triumphs over aesthetics, where lies beat the truth. Those who have more prescribe the life of those who know more.” (Prof. Goroslav Keller, PhD)
