I have been dreaming for a long time about a production featuring a great number of strong women, i.e. actresses I have known for a long time, not only from their stage roles, but also personally. I have been dreaming about an intimate project in which they will not have to play protagonists of the lowest social stratum or any other kind of female warriors; I have been dreaming about a production in which women could be everything just like men can be: ugly, stupid, corrupt, passive, unprincipled, fake, hurt, evil, prejudiced, patriarchal, engaged, smart, brave, inferior, grotesque, possessive. I keep thinking that gender equality will be achieved when we allow the same number of stupid women to be in leadership positions as we now allow men. This will happen if we stop demanding women should be superheroes. And the stories in My Husband are exactly that. A woman is caught in the moments of intimacy that no one sees, because they are not worth mentioning. The moment when a woman warms up the soup or puts on her tights. The moment she agrees to compromise, calculates, settles for a bad relationship, when she is not beautiful, when she is »not for the public eye«. Bužarovska does not fall into the trap of making women victims of men or society. Her women are active co-participants in relationships. Their thoughts, decisions, and actions (and non-actions) give legitimacy to the existence of family and social patterns. And that is precisely why they are also feminist. And engaged. And beautiful and emotional.
I would like to follow the way Bužarovska spins her yarn; it takes a while to realize these are not stories about a single woman. It is the feeling that we are all somewhat similar, only our paths are different. Maybe all in a similar society.
Ivana Djilas

*Translator of the Serbian editions of short stories Moj muž (Booka., 2017) and Nikuda ne idem (Booka., 2019).