Ciril Kosmač was a Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

n novelist and screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

.

Life

He was born in a Slovene family in the village of Slap ob Idrijci

Slap ob Idrijci

Slap ob Idrijci is a settlement on the right bank of the Idrijca River in the Municipality of Tolmin in the Littoral region of Slovenia.It is the birthplace of the Slovene writer Ciril Kosmač.-External links:*...

 near Sveta Lucija (now Most na Soči

Most na Soci

Most na Soči is a town in the Municipality of Tolmin in the Littoral region of Slovenia. It was named Sveta Lucija ob Soči until 1952. Other historical names include , and or Maurus Brucke. It is located on a rocky crest above the confluence of Soča and Idrijca rivers...

), in what was then the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca (now in Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

). He attended high school in Tolmin

Tolmin

Tolmin is a small town and municipality in the Littoral region of Slovenia.-Geography:Tolmin, the old town that gave the name to the entire area , is the largest settlement in the Upper Soča Valley , as well as its economic, cultural and administrative centre. It is located on a terrace above the...

 and Gorizia

Gorizia

Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, and it is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin...

. In the late 1920s, when his native region was part of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Kosmač joined the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR

TIGR

TIGR, abbreviation for Trst , Istra , Gorica and Reka , with the full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R. was a militant anti-Fascist and insurgent organization active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the eastern Italian border region known as the Julian March.The...

. In 1930, he was arrested by the Italian Fascist

Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...

 authorities, but released the next year. He fled to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

, and settled 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...

. In 1938, he was granted a scholarship granted by the French government, and he moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he worked for the Yugoslav embassy. In 1940, he fled to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he worked at the BBC World Service

BBC World Service

The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

. In 1943, he went to Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, and in 1944 to Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, where he joined the Yugoslav partisan resistance.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he worked as a reporter and a screenplayer for the emerging Slovenian film production industry. Among other, he wrote the screenplay for the film On Our Own Land. In 1956, he settled in the coastal resort town of Portorož

Portorož

- External links :**...

, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1961, he became a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members of the academy....

. He died in Ljubljana, and was buried in his native village. In 1980, he was posthumously granted the Prešeren Award

Prešeren Award

Prešeren Award is the highest decoration in the field of artistic and in the past also scientific creation in Slovenia awarded each year to one or two eminent Slovene artists...

, the highest award for artistic achievement in Slovenia.

Work

Kosmač is renowned mostly for his short stories, which are frequently praised for their subtle psychological depth. He started writing in the late 1930s, publishing short stories in the literary journal Sodobnost

Sodobnost

Sodobnost is a Slovenian literary and cultural magazine, established in 1933. It is considered the oldest of currently existing literary magazines in Slovenia. Although Sodobnost has traditionally been a magazine focused on cultural and literary issues, it nowadays covers a wide range of current...

, edited by the literary critic Josip Vidmar

Josip Vidmar

Josip Vidmar was a prominent Slovenian literary critic and essayist. Vidmar is remembered because of his role in the Slovenian resistance during World War II, and for his influence in the cultural policies of the Titoist regime in Slovenia from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s.He was born in...

. His early works show an affinity to other contemporary Slovene authors who embraced a style known as social realism

Social realism

Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...

: Prežihov Voranc

Prežihov Voranc

Prežihov Voranc was the pen name of Lovro Kuhar, a Slovene writer and Communist political activist. Voranc's literary reputation was established during the 1930s with a series of Slovene novels and short stories in the social realist style, notable for their depictions of poverty in rural and...

, Miško Kranjec

Miško Kranjec

Miško Kranjec was a Slovene writer.Kranjec was born in the village of Velika Polana in what was then the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the son of the village tailor Mihalj Kranjec...

, Anton Ingolič

Anton Ingolič

Anton Ingolič was a Slovene writer, playwright and editor.He is best known for his novels and youth literature....

, Tone Seliškar

Tone Seliškar

Tone Seliškar was a Slovene writer, poet, journalist and teacher. He published poetry, short stories and novels and is also known for his youth literature...

, Mile Klopčič

Mile Klopčič

Mile Klopčič was a Slovenian poet and translator. Together with Tone Seliškar, he is considered as the foremost representative of Slovene social realist poetry of the 1930s and 1940s....

, Bratko Kreft

Bratko Kreft

Bratko Kreft was an Slovenian playwright, writer, literary and theater historian and director.- Biography :...

, Ivan Potrč

Ivan Potrc

Ivan Potrč was a Slovene writer and playwright.-Biography:Ivan Potrč was born in a poor peasant family in Štuki near Ptuj, in what was then the Duchy of Styria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire...

 and others.

After World War II, he gradually turned away from social realism, and was among the first Slovene authors to include modernist features in his prose, especially surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

. His later prose, which he is most renowned for, has frequently been considered a type of magical realism.