Bora Ćosić (born 5 April 1932) is a Serbian, Croatian and Yugoslav

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

public intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or ...

, and

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...

. He wrote about 50 books, as well as several theater plays, which were played with great success in the Belgrade

Atelje 212 Atelje 212 ( sr-Cyrl, Атеље 212) is a theatre located in Belgrade, Serbia. Established in 1956 on the premises of the '' Borba'' building in front of 212 chairs, its opening play was the staging of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ''Faust'' dire ...

. For the novel ''The Role of My Family in the World Revolution'', he received the

NIN Award The ''NIN'' Award ( sr, Ninova nagrada, italics=yes, Нинова награда), officially the Award for Best Novel of the Year, is a prestigious Serbian (and previously Yugoslavian) literary award established in 1954 by the ''NIN'' weekly a ...

for Novel of the Year in 1970. Ćosić strongly denounced the rise of

Serbian nationalism Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, u ...

in the 1990s and the politics of Slobodan Milošević. Born in 1932 in Zagreb, he lived in Belgrade from 1937 to 1992, when he moved to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Biography

Bora Ćosić, was born in 1932 in Zagreb, and moved to Belgrade with his family in 1937. There he finished high school at the First Men's Gymnasium, then studied at the Department of Philosophy at the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-ba ...

. In his youth, he translated Russian futuristic poets, edited the newspaper ''Mlada kultura'' in 1952, the magazine '' Danas'' in 1961–1963, and the magazine Rok in 1969–1970. He worked as a playwright and artistic advisor in the film companies "Slavija", 1958–1959, and "Avala", 1962–1963. He collaborated on documentaries, wrote dialogue for feature films. During his stay in Europe, in addition to complete books, he published hundreds of texts in newspapers and magazines in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Poland and Albania. He has participated in more than two hundred readings in several European countries. He has given more than a hundred interviews for various media, press, radio and television. He has participated in literary conferences, festivals, symposia, international meetings and congresses.

Literary opus

He began his career as a writer with the novel ''House of Thieves'' from 1956, and then published books of essays ''Visible and Invisible Man'', 1962, ''Sodom and Gomorrah'', 1963. He is the author of the cult novel of recent Serbian prose, ''The Role of My Family in the World Revolution'', 1969, set in war and post-war Belgrade. At the same time, Ćosić is the legatee to the Central European prose tradition of intellectual essayism, as well as one of the last intellectuals who emotionally and sincerely identified with the Yugoslavia, with a mixture of elegiac and painful re-examination after its disintegration. A film of the same name was made based on that novel. The disintegration of Yugoslavia took the writer into voluntary exile (most often in

Rovinj Rovinj (; it, Rovigno; Istriot: or ; grc, Ρυγίνιον, Rygínion; la, Ruginium) is a city in Croatia situated on the north Adriatic Sea with a population of 14,294 (2011). Located on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, it is a p ...

and Berlin, while publishing in

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

). That part of his work is marked mainly by essays, among which the ''Diary of Stateless Persons'', 1993, (again a play with fictitious identity through which he expresses views on contemporary socio-political reality), ''Good Governance'', 1995, and ''Customs Declaration'', 2000, a semi - autobiographical text soaked in reflections on Yugoslavia and the author 's mixed feelings about it. He has written about 50 books, published in Serbia, Croatia and Germany.

Awards

* 1969:

, for novel ''Uloga moje porodice u svetskoj revoluciji''. * 2001: International Stefan Heym Prize. * 2002: Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, for an autobiographical essay ''Carinska deklaracija''. * 2008: Albatros Literaturpreis, for ''Priče o zanatima''.

Works

Incomplete list of works: * ''Kuća lopova'', 1956. * ''Vidljivi i nevidljivi čovek'', 1962. * ''Sodoma i Gomora'', 1963. * ''Priče o zanatima'', 1966. * ''Uloga moje porodice u svetskoj revoluciji'', 1969. * ''Tutori'', 1978. * ''Poslovi/sumnje/snovi Miroslava Krleže'', 1983. * ''Doktor Krleža'', 1988. * ''Dnevnik apatrida'', 1993. * ''Dobra vladavina (i psihopatalogija njenog svakodnevlja)'', 1995. * ''Carinska deklaracija'', 2000. * ''Pogled maloumnog'', 2001. * ''Tkanje'', 2001. * ''Nulta zemlja'', 2002. * ''Irenina soba'', (poezija), 2002. * ''Izgnanici'', 2005. * ''Consul u Beogradu'', 2007. * ''Put na Aljasku'', 2008. * ''Zapadno od raja'', 2009. * ''Kratko detinjstvo u Agramu'', 2011. * ''Doručak kod Majestica'', 2011. * ''Povest o Miškinu'', 2019. * ''Bez'', 2021. * ''Bergotova udovica'', 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cosic, Bora 1932 births Living people Writers from Belgrade Serbian translators Yugoslav writers Writers from Zagreb University of Belgrade alumni