Zija Dizdarević (18 February 1916 – 1942) was a Bosnian prose writer.

Biography

He was born in

Vitina Viti ( sq-definite, Vitia) or Vitina ( sr-Cyrl, Витина), is a town and municipality located in the District of Gjilan in Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Viti has 4,924 inhabitants, while the municipality has 46,987 inhabita ...

Ljubuški Ljubuški is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the West Herzegovina Canton, a unit of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Kravica cascades lie within the municipality, near the settlement of Studenci ...

municipality,

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

Bosniak The Bosniaks ( bs, Bošnjaci, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry, cu ...

parents Šefkija Dizdarević and Selima, from where he moved in 1920 to

Fojnica Fojnica ( sr-cyrl, Фојница) is a town and municipality located in Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located west of the capital Sarajevo, in the valley of the Fojn ...

. There he spent most of his youth and always came back regardless of all the other places he went to. After finishing primary school in Fojnica, he started grammar school in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...

, and finished it in 1936. This is when his literary and political work started. In those ages he managed to publish few short stories, and to get arrested for participating in youth strikes. In 1937 he started studying pedagogy 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-b ...

Faculty of Philosophy A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

. His literary works started to appear in many papers, but also his political engagement rose. Even before he turned 30 the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

started. For a year he worked in Fojnica and Sarajevo as illegal cooperator, thus in spring of 1942, one day before joining the

partisan Partisan may refer to: Military * Partisan (weapon), a pole weapon * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line Films * ''Partisan'' (film), a 2015 Australian film * ''Hell River'', a 1974 Yugoslavian film also know ...

army he was arrested in Sarajevo and taken to

Jasenovac concentration camp Jasenovac () was a concentration camp, concentration and extermination camps, extermination camp established in the Jasenovac, Sisak-Moslavina County, village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in I ...

, where he was executed shortly afterwards.

List of works

All Dizdarević's works were published after his death. This is the list of titles and their first editions. List is in

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...

, but possible translations into English are also given. There is no record that any of his works are translated into English until today. :Pripovijetke (Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1948), ''Short Stories'' :Prosanjane jeseni (Džepna knjiga, Sarajevo, 1959), ''The Autumns That were Dreamt Away'' :Sabrana djela (Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1968), ''Collected Works'' :Blago u duvaru (Zadrugar, Sarajevo, 1983), ''Treasure in the Wall''

Adaptations

Dizdarević's story "Blago u duvaru" was adapted into film under the same name by Aleksandar Jevđević in 1975 for TV Sarajevo

References

1916 births 1942 deaths Yugoslav writers Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Muslims People from Ljubuški People from the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina writers Bosniak writers University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy alumni People who died in Jasenovac concentration camp {{BosniaHerzegovina-bio-stub