Bogomir Magajna was a Slovene writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

.

Biography

Magajna was born in 1904 into a farming family in Gornje Vreme

Gornje Vreme

Gornje Vreme is a village on the banks of the river Reka in the Divača municipality in the Littoral-Kras region region of Slovenia.It is the birthplace of the writer Bogomir Magajna.- External links :*...

 near Divača

Divaca

Divača is a small town and municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia, a few kilometres from the Italian border.The Parish Church in the settlement is dedicated to Saint Anthony the Hermit and belongs to the Diocese of Koper....

 in what was then the Austrian Littoral

Austrian Littoral

The Austrian Littoral was established as a crown land of the Austrian Empire in 1849. In 1861 it was divided into the three crown lands of the Imperial Free City of Trieste and its suburbs, the Margraviate of Istria, and the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, which each had separate...

. He began his schooling in Vremski Britof

Vremski Britof

Vremski Britof is a village on an elevation above the banks of the river Reka in the Divača municipality in the Littoral-Kras region region of Slovenia....

 and was later sent to the Collegium Marianum (Marijanišče), Catholic boarding-school in Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...

. This is where he began to write. After finishing secondary schooling he studied medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 in Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...

 and Zagreb

Zagreb

Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...

 and specialised in psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

. He worked in the psychiatric hospital in Ljubljana for most of his career, though he also worked for short periods in Logatec

Logatec

Logatec is a town and a municipality in Slovenia. It is located roughly in the centre of Inner Carniola between capital Ljubljana and Postojna. The area is mostly covered by forests and is known for biking and hiking routes. The town of Logatec has seen rapid industrial development and immigration...

 and Sarajevo

Sarajevo

Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....

. During this period, he became active in the circle of young Catholic and Christian Socialist intellectuals, who gathered around the journal Križ na gori. He became a friend of prominent artists and intellectuals, such as Edvard Kocbek

Edvard Kocbek

Edvard Kocbek was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, political activist, and resistance fighter. He is considered as one of the best authors who have written in Slovene, and one of the best Slovene poets after Prešeren...

 and Božo Vodušek, Miran Jarc

Miran Jarc

Miran Jarc was a Slovene writer, poet, playwright and essayist.Jarc was born in the town of Črnomelj in White Carniola, in what was then Austria-Hungary in 1900. He was sent to school in Novo Mesto, and between 1918 and 1922 studied Slavic philology in Zagreb and Ljubljana, though he never...

 and Rajko Ložar. He was also a close friend and advisor to the avant-garde poet Srečko Kosovel

Srecko Kosovel

Srečko Kosovel was a Slovene expressionist poet who evolved towards avant-garde forms. Since the 1960s, Kosovel has become a poetic icon, in the league of the most prestigious Slovene literates like France Prešeren and Ivan Cankar. Together with Edvard Kocbek, he is considered as the most...

.

During the Second World War, he was interned in an Italian concentration camp for a while and then joined the partisans where he worked as a doctor and also edited the Partisan Medical Journal. After the war he returned to work in the hospital in Ljubljana. He lectured in various towns around Slovenia. He died in Ljubljana. The Bogomir Magajna Primary School in Divača is named after him.

Work

Magajna wrote some adult fiction. He used images from his work in his writing and some of his best characters are troubled by serious illness which affects all aspects of their lives (Zaznamovani (The Marked) collection of short stories, Ljubljana 1940). He also wrote stories for children. The stories Brkonja Čeljustnik (1933) and Racko and Lija are his best known works. Brkonja Čeljustnik is a story about a gentle giant who helps many people, only to turn against them in disappointment when his long moustache is chopped off. Things are eventually sorted out with a bit of magic and the perseverance of a brave and honest boy. Racko and Lija is a collection of 17 short stories about a young boy's attempts to understand the adult world.

Adult fiction

• Primorske novele (Stories from the Littoral) (1930)
• Bratje in sestre (Brothers and Sisters), short stories (1932)
• Gornje mesto (Upper Town), novel (1932)
• Graničarji (Borderguards), short stories (1934)
• Le hrepenenja (Just Desires), short stories (1937)
• Zaznamovani (The Marked), collection of stories (1940)
• Oživeli obrazi (Remembered Faces) legends and songs in prose(1943)
• Odmev korakov (Echos of Steps) short stories (1953)
• Zgodbe o lepih ženah (Stories of Beautiful Women) (1955)
• Na bregovih srca (On the Banks of the Heart) collection of stories (1957)
• Življenje in sanje (Life and Dreams) (1965)

For children

• Racko in Lija, collection of stories (Racko and Lija) (1932)
• Brkonja Čeljustnik, fairytale (1933)
• Čudovita pravljica o Vidu in labodu belem ptiču, (The Wonderful Tale about Vid and the White Swan) (1937)
• V deželi pravljic in sanj (In the Land of Fairytales and Dreams) (1952)
• O zlatem klasu, zlatem grozdu in biseru, fairytale (The Golden Ear of Corn, the Golden Grape and the Pearl) (1955)
• Povestice o punčki Maji (Stories About Little Maja) (1957)