Ivo Andric

Ivo Andrić (1892 - 1975), a Serbian-Croatian novelist, short story writer, and Nobel Prize winner from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ivan Andrić (Ivo is diminutive of Ivan) was born on October 9th, 1892 near Travnik, Bosnia (then part of Austria-Hungary) to a Catholic family of Bosnian Croats. He started his education in Sarajevo's Gymnasium and continued studies at the universities in Krakow, Vienna, and Graz. Because of his political activities, Andrić was interned by the Austrian government during World War I in the Doboj Austrian detention camp alongside with civilian Serbs and pro-Serb south Slavs.

Under the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), Andrić held a number of diplomatic posts, including that of ambassador to Germany. His ambassadorship ended in 1941, and during World War II Andrić lived in Belgrade. The post-war decade was his most productive period. Following the death of his wife in 1968, he slowly reduced his activities. As the time went by, he became increasingly ill and eventually died on March 13th, 1975.

The material for his works was mainly drawn from the history, folklore and culture of his native Bosnia. Andrić wrote in and supported the Serbo-Croatian language, and of his works translated into English the best known are the following:

• The Bridge on the Drina (Na Drini ćuprija, 1945; trans. 1959)
• The Woman from Sarajevo (Gospođica, 1945; trans. 1965)
• The Vizier's Elephant (Priča o vezirovom slonu, 1948; trans. 1962)

The first earned him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1961.

Some of his other popular works include:

• The Journey of Alija Đerzelez (Put Alije Đerzeleza, 1920)
• Bosnian Chronicle (Travnička hronika, 1945)
• The Damned Yard (Prokleta avlija, 1954)
• Omer-Pasha Latas (Omerpaša Latas, released posthumously in 1977)

Andrić was an avid supporter of the unity among the south Slavs, a believer in the Yugoslav idea. He was probably the most famous signer of the Novi Sad Literary Agreement of 1954, which entrenched a joint Serbo-Croatian language; his works were written in both the Serbian and in the Croatian variants of the language. He spent most of his life working in and for Serbia and published a lot in the Serbian literary institution Matica srpska. Due to this, in recent times, some nationalist Croats and Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina declared him a literary persona non grata and reportedly even went so far as to have him excluded from school textbooks.

Nevertheless, his world-renowned writings on Bosnia and its peoples remain one of the peaks of 20th century literature of former Yugoslavia and is today revered both in Serbian and in Croatian literature.

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External Links

• His official website