Lado Kralj (27 March 1938 – 12 December 2022) was a Slovene writer, theatre critic and literary historian. From 1987 to 2005 he worked as a professor in

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

. He published and contributed to numerous books on literature and theatre. Kralj was born in

Slovenj Gradec Slovenj Gradec (; german: Windischgrätz'', ''after about 1900 ''Windischgraz'') is a town in northern Slovenia. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Slovenj Gradec. It is part of the historical Styria region, and since 2005 it has belon ...

in northern

Drava Banovina The Drava Banovina or Drava Banate ( Slovene and Serbo-Croatian: ''Dravska banovina''), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of most of present-day Slovenia and was named for the Dra ...

(today Slovenia) in 1938. He studied

comparative In general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as wel ...

and

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

at the University of Ljubljana where he also got his PhD in 1986. He attended postgraduate study at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(1970–1971) and co-founded an experimental theatre group upon his return to Ljubljana. Between 1978 and 1982 he was also

artistic director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...

at the Slovene National Theatre in Ljubljana. He worked as a lecturer at the University in Ljubljana until his retirement in 2005. In 2010 he published his literary debut ''Kosec koso brusi'' (The Scyther Grinds the Scythe), which won him the Best Debut Novel Award awarded by the Union of Slovenian Publishers and Booksellers as well as the 2011

Fabula Award Fabula is a literary award in Slovenia awarded each year for the best collection of short prose in Slovene published in the previous two years. It has been bestowed since 2006 by the national newspaper house Dnevnik at the Fabula World Literature ...

for best collection of short prose in Slovene published within the previous two years. Kralj died on 12 December 2022, aged 84. In June 2023, his novel ''Ne bom se več drsal na bajerju'' (I Will No Longer Skate on the

Pond A pond is an area filled with water, either natural or artificial, that is smaller than a lake. Defining them to be less than in area, less than deep, and with less than 30% emergent vegetation helps in distinguishing their ecology from th ...

) was awarded the Kresnik prize, the most prestigious prize for

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s in Slovenia. The novel takes place in Ljubljana during the Italian occupation in the early 1940s and in the post-war period in the 1950s. It focuses on the

Šiška District The Šiška District (; sl, Četrtna skupnost Šiška), or simply Šiška (), is the most populous district (Slovenia), district () of the City Municipality of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It is named after the former villages of Spodnja � ...

of Ljubljana, where a young man working for the

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

falls in love with a student at the monastery boarding school, a woman who is also the love interest of an Italian officer.

Published works

* ''Ekspresionizem'' (Expressionism), monograph, (1986) * ''Teorija drame '' (The Theory of Drama), (1998) * ''Primerjalni članki'' (Comparative Articles), (2006) * ''Kosec koso brusi'' (The Reaper Sharpening His Scythe), short stories, (2010) * ''Ne bom se več drsal na bajerju'' (I Will No Longer Skate on the Pond), novel, (2022)

References

External links

Lado Kralj on Read Central, Slovenian literature in translation site
1938 births 2022 deaths Slovenian literary critics Slovenian literary historians Fabula laureates Slovenian male short story writers Slovenian short story writers University of Ljubljana alumni New York University alumni Academic staff of the University of Ljubljana People from Slovenj Gradec {{slovenia-writer-stub