Miodrag Bulatović ( cnr-Cyrl, Миодраг Булатовић; 20 February 1930 – 15 March 1991), was a writer, novelist, journalist and playwright. He is considered to be one of the best Montenegrin novelists and remains the most translated Montenegrin author.
Biography
Bulatović began in 1956 with a book of short stories, ''Djavoli dolaze'' ("The Devils Are Coming", translated as ''Stop the Danube''), for which he received the Serbian Writers Union Award. His novel ''The Red Rooster Flies Heavenwards'', set in his homeland of northeastern
Montenegro
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, was translated into more than twenty foreign languages. He then stopped publishing for a time, to protest against interference in his work.
His next novel, ''Hero on a Donkey'', "A dark hot nightmare of a war novel...", was first published abroad and only four years later (1967) in Yugoslavia.
Common themes in his works are demons, devil, evil, grotesque and black humor.
In 1975, Bulatović won 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 ...
for novel of the year for ''People with Four Fingers'', an insight into the émigré's life. ''The Fifth Finger'' was a sequel to that book. His last novel was ''Gullo Gullo'', which brought together various themes from his previous books.
A library in
Rakovica is named after him.
Bulatović was known "for his fierce
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 ...
, which earned him the enmity of other ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, and he was an official of
Serbia's Socialist Party."
His candidature for the President of the
Association of Writers of Yugoslavia in 1986 was rejected by Slovenian, Kosovan, Montenegrin and Croatian branch of the Association contributing to the subsequent discussion of the Association in 1989.
Works
* ''Stop the Danube'' (Djavoli dolaze, 1956)
* ''The Wolf and the Bell'' (Vuk i zvono, 1958)
* ''The Red Rooster Flies Heavenwards'' (Crveni petao leti prema nebu, 1959)
* ''Godot has Arrived'' (Godo je došao, 1966)
* ''Hero on a Donkey'' (Heroj na magarcu, 1967)
* ''The War Was Better'' (Rat je bio bolji, 1968)
* ''People with Four Fingers'' (Ljudi sa četiri prsta, 1975)
* ''The Fifth Finger'' (Peti prst, 1977)
* ''Gullo gullo'' (1981)
* ''Death's Lover'' - a series of articles in ''
Politika
''Politika'' ( sr-Cyrl, Политика; ''Politics'') is a Serbian daily newspaper, published in Belgrade. Founded in 1904 by Vladislav F. Ribnikar, it is the oldest daily newspaper still in circulation in the Balkans.
Publishing and owners ...
'' newspaper (Ljubavnik smrti, 1990)
Notes
References
1930 births
1991 deaths
People from Bijelo Polje
Montenegrin writers
Montenegrin male writers
University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy alumni
Burials at Belgrade New Cemetery
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