Drago Jancar
Encyclopedia
Drago Jančar is a Slovenia
n writer
, playwright
and essayist. Jančar is one of the most known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement.
, an industrial center in what was then the Yugoslav
Socialist Republic of Slovenia
. His father, originally from the Prekmurje
region, was a former partisan
. Jančar studied law in his home town. While a student, he became chief editor of the student journal Katedra; he soon came in conflict with the Communist establishment because he published some articles critical of the ruling regime. He had to leave the journal. He soon found a job as an assistant at the Maribor daily newspaper Večer
. In 1974 he was arrested by Yugoslav
authorities for bringing to Yugoslavia a booklet entitled V Rogu ležimo pobiti (We Lie Killed in the Rog Forest), which he had bought in nearby Austria
and lent to some friends. The booklet was a survivor's account of the Kočevski Rog
massacres of the Slovene Home Guard war prisoners perpetrated by Josip Broz Tito
's regime in May 1945. He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for "spreading hostile propaganda" but was released after three months. Immediately after his release he was called up for military service in southern Serbia
, where he was subjected to systematic harassment by his superiors due to his "criminal file".
After completing military service, Jančar briefly returned to Večer, but he was allowed to perform only administrative work. He decided to move to Ljubljana
, where he came into contact with several influential artists and intellectuals who were also critical of the cultural policies of the Communist establishment, among them Edvard Kocbek
, Ivan Urbančič, Alenka Puhar
, Marjan Rožanc
, and Rudi Šeligo
. Between 1978 and 1980, he worked as a screenwriter in the film studio Viba Film, but he quit because his adaptation of Vitomil Zupan
's script for Živojin Pavlović
's movie See You in the Next War
was censored. In 1981, he worked as a secretary for the Slovenska matica
publishing house, where he is now an editor. In 1982, he was among the co-founders of the journal Nova revija
, which soon emerged as the major alternative and opposition voice in Socialist Slovenia. He also befriended Boris Pahor
, the Slovene writer from Trieste
who wrote about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps
. Jančar has frequently pointed out Pahor's profound influence on him, especially in the essay "The Man Who Said No" (1990), one of the first comprehensive assessments of Pahor's literary and moral role in the post-war
era in Slovenia.
Early in his career, Jančar was not allowed to publish his works, but when Kardelj
's and Tito's deaths in the late 1970s led to gradual liberalisation, he was able to work as a screenwriter and playwright. In the mid-1980s, he gained initial success with his novels and short stories, while his plays earned recognition throughout Yugoslavia
. From the late 1980s on, his fame began to grow outside the country, especially in Central Europe
.
Since the early 1990s, he has worked as an editor at the Slovenska matica
publishing house in Ljubljana.
.
Jančar's prose is influenced by modernist models. One of the central themes of his works is the conflict between individuals and repressive institutions, such as prisons, galleys, psychiatric hospitals and military barracks. He is famous for his laconic and highly ironic
style, which often makes use of tragicomic
twists. Most of his novels explore concrete events and circumstances in Central European history, which he sees as an exemplification of the human condition
.
He also writes essay
s and column
s on the current political and cultural situation. During the war in Bosnia, he voiced his support for the Bosnian
cause and personally visited the besieged Sarajevo
to take supplies collected by the Slovene Writers' Association to the civilian population. In his essay "Short Report from a City Long Besieged" (Kratko poročilo iz dolgo obleganega mesta), he reflected on the War in Yugoslavia and the more general question of the ambiguous role of intellectuals in ethnic, national and political conflicts.
Throughout the 1990s, he engaged in polemics with the Austrian writer Peter Handke
regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
and through this role also actively supported the emergence of Slovenian democracy. In 1987, he was among the authors of the Contributions to the Slovenian National Program
, an manifesto calling for a democratic, pluralistic and sovereign Slovenian state. During the Ljubljana trial in spring and summer 1988, he was one of the organizers of the first opposition political rally in Slovenia since 1945, which was held on the central Congress Square
in Ljubljana. In the run-up to the first democratic elections in April 1990, Jančar actively campaigned for the oppositional
presidential candidate Jože Pučnik
. During the Slovenian War of Independence, he and several other writers helped rally international support for Slovenia's independence.
In 2000, Slovenia's most widely read daily newspaper, Delo
, published his controversial essay "Xenos and Xenophobia", which accused the Slovenian liberal
media of inciting xenophobia
and Anti-Catholicism
(Jančar himself is an agnostic). He had been accusing the liberal media of similar attitudes since 1994, when his essay "Egyptian Pots of Meat" blamed the media for having helped the rise of the chauvinistic Slovenian National Party
.
Although Jančar has never actively participated in politics, he controversially publicly supported the Slovenian Democratic Party
during the general elections
of 2000
and 2004
.
In 2004, he was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic .
, Asia
and the United States
. The most numerous translation are into German, followed by Czech
and Croatian
translations.
His dramas have also been staged by a number of foreign theatres, while back home they are frequently considered the highlights of the Slovenian theatrical season. Jančar has received a number of literary awards, including the Prešeren Award
, Slovenia's most prestigious arts award in 1993 for his narratives, plays and essays; the Kresnik Award
for best novel of the year in 1999 (for Zvenenje v glavi), 2001 (for Katarina, pav in jezuit) and 2011 (for To noč sem jo videl); the European Short Story Award (Augsburg
, 1994); the Herder Prize
for literature in 2003; the European Prize for Literature
in 2011. Since 1995, he has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
.
He lives and works in Ljubljana.
Plays
Essays
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 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....
, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and essayist. Jančar is one of the most known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement.
Life
He was born in MariborMaribor
Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....
, an industrial center in what was then the Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
Socialist Republic of Slovenia
Socialist Republic of Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1943 until 1990...
. His father, originally from the Prekmurje
Prekmurje
Prekmurje is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region settled by Slovenes and lying between the Mur River in Slovenia and the Rába Valley in the most western part of Hungary...
region, was a former partisan
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
. Jančar studied law in his home town. While a student, he became chief editor of the student journal Katedra; he soon came in conflict with the Communist establishment because he published some articles critical of the ruling regime. He had to leave the journal. He soon found a job as an assistant at the Maribor daily newspaper Večer
Večer (Maribor)
Večer is a daily newspaper published in Maribor, Slovenia. It was officially established on May 9 1945 as a publication declaring the liberation of Maribor called Maribor svoboden . Regular circulation started on May 25 1945 under the name Vestnik. But it wasn't before 1949 that it became a daily...
. In 1974 he was arrested by Yugoslav
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
authorities for bringing to Yugoslavia a booklet entitled V Rogu ležimo pobiti (We Lie Killed in the Rog Forest), which he had bought in nearby Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and lent to some friends. The booklet was a survivor's account of the Kočevski Rog
Kocevski Rog
The Kočevski Rog or Kočevje Rog or simply Rog is a karstified plateau in the Kočevje Highlands above the Črmošnjice Valley. The plateau is part of the traditional Lower Carniola region of Slovenia and of the Dinaric Alps. The highest area is the central part, with the 1099 meter high peak Veliki...
massacres of the Slovene Home Guard war prisoners perpetrated by Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
's regime in May 1945. He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for "spreading hostile propaganda" but was released after three months. Immediately after his release he was called up for military service in southern Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, where he was subjected to systematic harassment by his superiors due to his "criminal file".
After completing military service, Jančar briefly returned to Večer, but he was allowed to perform only administrative work. He decided to move to 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...
, where he came into contact with several influential artists and intellectuals who were also critical of the cultural policies of the Communist establishment, among them 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...
, Ivan Urbančič, Alenka Puhar
Alenka Puhar
Alenka Puhar is a Slovenian journalist, author, translator, and historian. She is known for her columns in the Slovenian journal Delo, for her writings on the dissident movements in Socialist Slovenia and Yugoslavia, as well as for her book "The Primary Text of Life" , a combination of...
, Marjan Rožanc
Marjan Rožanc
Marjan Rožanc was a Slovenian author, playwright and journalist. He is mostly known for his essays, and is considered one of the foremost essayists in the Slovene language, along with Ivan Cankar, Jože Javoršek and Drago Jančar, and as a great master of style.He was born in a working-class suborb...
, and Rudi Šeligo
Rudi Šeligo
Rudi Šeligo was a Slovenian writer, playwright, essayist and politician. Together with Lojze Kovačič and Drago Jančar, he is considered as one of the foremost Slovenian modernist writers of the post-World War II period.- Life :...
. Between 1978 and 1980, he worked as a screenwriter in the film studio Viba Film, but he quit because his adaptation of Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan
Vitomil Zupan , who also wrote under the pseudonym Langus, was a Slovenian writer, poet, playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He is considered one of the most important authors in the Slovene language of the second half of the 20th century.-Biography:Vitomil Zupan was born in Ljubljana, then part...
's script for Živojin Pavlović
Živojin Pavlovic
Živojin "Žika" Pavlović was a Serbian film director and writer. In his films and novels, he depicted the cruel reality of small, poor and abandoned people living in the corners of society; he was one of leaders of Serbian the "Black wave" in film in 1960s, a movement which portrayed the darker...
's movie See You in the Next War
See You in the Next War
See You in the Next War is a 1980 Yugoslav war film directed by Živojin Pavlović. It competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival....
was censored. In 1981, he worked as a secretary for the Slovenska matica
Slovenska matica
Slovenska matica , also known as Matica slovenska, is the second-oldest publishing house in Slovenia, founded in the 19th century as an institution for the scholarly and cultural progress of Slovenes...
publishing house, where he is now an editor. In 1982, he was among the co-founders of the journal Nova revija
Nova revija
Nova revija is a Slovenian publishing house and cultural institute that developed from the literary journal with the same name.- The magazine :...
, which soon emerged as the major alternative and opposition voice in Socialist Slovenia. He also befriended Boris Pahor
Boris Pahor
Boris Pahor is a Slovene writer from Italy. He is considered to be one of the most influential living authors in the Slovene language and has been nominated for the Nobel prize for literature by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
, the Slovene writer from Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
who wrote about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
. Jančar has frequently pointed out Pahor's profound influence on him, especially in the essay "The Man Who Said No" (1990), one of the first comprehensive assessments of Pahor's literary and moral role in the post-war
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...
era in Slovenia.
Early in his career, Jančar was not allowed to publish his works, but when Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj also known under the pseudonyms Sperans and Krištof was a Yugoslav communist political leader, economist, partisan, publicist, and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
's and Tito's deaths in the late 1970s led to gradual liberalisation, he was able to work as a screenwriter and playwright. In the mid-1980s, he gained initial success with his novels and short stories, while his plays earned recognition throughout Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. From the late 1980s on, his fame began to grow outside the country, especially in Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
.
Since the early 1990s, he has worked as an editor at the Slovenska matica
Slovenska matica
Slovenska matica , also known as Matica slovenska, is the second-oldest publishing house in Slovenia, founded in the 19th century as an institution for the scholarly and cultural progress of Slovenes...
publishing house in Ljubljana.
Work
Jančar started writing as a teenager. His first short novels were published by the magazine MladinaMladina
Mladina is a Slovenian weekly left-wing current affairs magazine. It was first published in the 1920s as the youth magazine of the Slovenian Communist Party...
.
Jančar's prose is influenced by modernist models. One of the central themes of his works is the conflict between individuals and repressive institutions, such as prisons, galleys, psychiatric hospitals and military barracks. He is famous for his laconic and highly ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
style, which often makes use of tragicomic
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
twists. Most of his novels explore concrete events and circumstances in Central European history, which he sees as an exemplification of the human condition
Human condition
The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
.
He also writes essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s and column
Column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...
s on the current political and cultural situation. During the war in Bosnia, he voiced his support for the Bosnian
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
cause and personally visited the besieged Sarajevo
Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...
to take supplies collected by the Slovene Writers' Association to the civilian population. In his essay "Short Report from a City Long Besieged" (Kratko poročilo iz dolgo obleganega mesta), he reflected on the War in Yugoslavia and the more general question of the ambiguous role of intellectuals in ethnic, national and political conflicts.
Throughout the 1990s, he engaged in polemics with the Austrian writer Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
The public intellectual
Between 1987 and 1991 Jančar served as president of the Slovene PEN CenterInternational PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
and through this role also actively supported the emergence of Slovenian democracy. In 1987, he was among the authors of the Contributions to the Slovenian National Program
Contributions to the Slovenian National Program
Contributions to the Slovenian National Program , also known as Nova revija 57 or 57th edition of Nova revija was a special issue of the Slovenian opposition intellectual journal Nova revija, published in January 1987...
, an manifesto calling for a democratic, pluralistic and sovereign Slovenian state. During the Ljubljana trial in spring and summer 1988, he was one of the organizers of the first opposition political rally in Slovenia since 1945, which was held on the central Congress Square
Congress Square
Congress Square is one of the central squares in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.The square was built in 1821 at the site of the ruins of a medieval Capuchin monastery, which had been abolished during the reign of Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. The square was used for ceremonial purposes during...
in Ljubljana. In the run-up to the first democratic elections in April 1990, Jančar actively campaigned for the oppositional
Democratic Opposition of Slovenia
Democratic Opposition of Slovenia, also known as the DEMOS coalition was a coalition of democratic political parties, created by an agreement between the Slovenian Democratic Union, the Social Democrat Alliance of Slovenia, the Slovene Christian Democrats, the Farmers' Alliance and the Greens of...
presidential candidate Jože Pučnik
Jože Pucnik
Jože Pučnik was a Slovenian public intellectual, sociologist and politician. During the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, Pučnik was one of the most outspoken Slovenian critics of dictatorship and lack of civil liberties in former Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned for a total of 7 years, and later...
. During the Slovenian War of Independence, he and several other writers helped rally international support for Slovenia's independence.
In 2000, Slovenia's most widely read daily newspaper, Delo
Delo
Delo is the largest national daily newspaper in Slovenia. It was established on May 1st, 1959, when two newspapers Ljudska pravica and Slovenski poročevalec merged. Nowadays, it is the most influential and credible daily newspaper in Slovenia...
, published his controversial essay "Xenos and Xenophobia", which accused the Slovenian liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
media of inciting xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
and Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism is a generic term for discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed against Catholicism, and especially against the Catholic Church, its clergy or its adherents...
(Jančar himself is an agnostic). He had been accusing the liberal media of similar attitudes since 1994, when his essay "Egyptian Pots of Meat" blamed the media for having helped the rise of the chauvinistic Slovenian National Party
Slovenian National Party
The Slovenian National Party is a extreme nationalist political party in Slovenia, led by Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti. The party is renowned for its euroscepticism and opposes Slovenia's membership in NATO...
.
Although Jančar has never actively participated in politics, he controversially publicly supported the Slovenian Democratic Party
Slovenian Democratic Party
The Slovenian Democratic Party , known until 2003 as the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia is a Slovenian centre-right liberal conservative and Christian democratic party...
during the general elections
Elections in Slovenia
At a national level, Slovenia elects a head of state and a legislature. The president is elected for a five year term by the people using the Run-Off system. The National Assembly , Slovenia's parliament, has 90 members each elected for four-year terms. All but two of these are elected using the...
of 2000
Slovenian parliamentary election, 2000
Parliamentary elections were held in Slovenia on 15 October 2000. The result was a victory for Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, which won 34 of the 90 seats. Following the election, Liberal Democracy leader Janez Drnovšek returned to the post of Prime Minister....
and 2004
Slovenian parliamentary election, 2004
-Delegation of Socialni demokrati [United List of Social Democrats]:-Delegation of Liberalna demokracija Slovenije [Liberal Democracy of Slovenia]:-Delegation of Nova Slovenija [New Slovenia]:...
.
In 2004, he was among the co-founders of the liberal conservative civic platform Rally for the Republic .
Recognition and reception
Jančar's novels, essays and short stories have been translated into 21 languages and published in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The most numerous translation are into German, followed by Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
translations.
His dramas have also been staged by a number of foreign theatres, while back home they are frequently considered the highlights of the Slovenian theatrical season. Jančar has received a number of literary awards, including 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...
, Slovenia's most prestigious arts award in 1993 for his narratives, plays and essays; the Kresnik Award
Kresnik Award
Kresnik is a literary award in Slovenia awarded each year for the best novel in Slovene of the previous year. It has been bestowed since 1991 at summer solstice by the national newspaper house Delo. The awards ceremony is normally held on Rožnik hill above Ljubljana where the winner is invided to...
for best novel of the year in 1999 (for Zvenenje v glavi), 2001 (for Katarina, pav in jezuit) and 2011 (for To noč sem jo videl); the European Short Story Award (Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
, 1994); the Herder Prize
Herder Prize
The Herder Prize, established in 1963 and named for Johann Gottfried von Herder, was a prestigious international prize dedicated to the promotion of scientific, art and literature relations, and presented to scholars and artists from Central and Southeastern Europe whose life and work have improved...
for literature in 2003; the European Prize for Literature
European Prize for Literature
European Prize for Literature is a European-wide literary award sponsored by the city of Strasbourg with support from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs . The prize is award by the Jurys des Grands Prix Littéraires, in Strasbourg, at the same time as the Prix de Littérature Francophone...
in 2011. Since 1995, he has been 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 lives and works in Ljubljana.
Selected bibliography
Novels- Petintrideset stopinj (Thirtyfive Degrees), 1974
- Galjot (Galiot), 1978
- Severni sij (Northern Lights), 1984
- Pogled angela (Angel's Gaze), 1992
- Posmehljivo poželenje (Mocking Desire), 1993
- Zvenenje v glavi (Ringing in the Head), 1998
- Katarina, pav in jezuit (Katerina), 2000
- Graditelj (The Builder), 2006
- Drevo brez imena (The Tree with No Name), 2008
- To noč sem jo videl (I Saw Her That Night), 2010
Plays
- Disident Arnož in njegovi (Dissident Arnož and his Band), 1982
- Veliki briljantni valček (The Great Brilliant Waltz), 1985
- Vsi tirani mameluki so hud konec vzeli ... (All Mameluk Tyrants had a Bad End...), 1986
- Daedalus (Daedalus), 1988
- Klementov padec (Klement's Fall), 1988
- Zalezujoč Godota (After Godot), 1988
- Halštat (Hallstatt), 1994
- Severni sij (Northern Lights), 2005
- Niha ura tiha (The Silently Oscillating Clock), 2007
Essays
- Razbiti vrč (The Broken Jug), 1992
- Egiptovski lonci mesa (Egyptian Pots of Meat), 1994
- Brioni (Brioni), 2002
- Duša Evrope (Europe's Soul), 2006
See also
- List of Slovenian writers
- Slovenian literatureSlovenian literatureSlovene literature, meaning the literature in the Slovene language, starts with Freising manuscripts around 1000. From first printed Slovene religious books in 1550 it is followed by these literary periods and notable authors:-Middle Ages:-Folk poetry:...
- Culture of SloveniaCulture of SloveniaSlovenia's first book was printed by the Protestant reformer Primož Trubar . It was actually two books, Katekizem and Abecednik, which was published in 1550 in Tübingen, Germany....
- Simona ŠkrabecSimona ŠkrabecSimona Škrabec is a Slovene literary critic, essayist and translator who lives and works in Barcelona.She was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to a Serbian father and a Slovene mother. She spent her childhood in the small town of Ribnica in the Lower Carniola region. She studied German language and...
External links
- Jean Améry-Prize to Drago Jančar
- "Drago Jančar: Critical Observer of Society" (Article in Slovenia News)
- Short Biography in the Journal Transcript (with picture)
- Video of Drago Jančar in a public reading on the 1988 demonstration against the repressive policies of the Yugoslav regime
- dB, or a Brief History of Noise, essai by Drago Jančar January 2010