Gordana Kuić

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Gordana Kuić, Vienna 2015

Gordana Kuić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Гордана Куић ; born August 29, 1942 in Belgrade ) is a Serbian writer .

life and work

Kuić comes from a family of Sephardic Jews in the former Yugoslavia . She studied English Philology and Literature at the University of Belgrade and worked as an English Teaching Advisor at the American Embassy in Belgrade and the Soros Foundation in New York. From 1986 she published seven novels and two volumes of short stories. Her work was primarily inspired by her mother, Blanko Levi, and her aunts. The writer sees herself as a classic narrator and likes to quote Stendhal's sentence: "Il faut que le roman raconte".

In her first novel Miris kiše na Balkanu , she described the cities of Sarajevo and Belgrade before she was born, and she originally feared that she would not be able to capture the atmosphere of that time. However, when the book appeared and the first edition was out of print, many readers were amazed at how a woman of the next generation could describe this period so precisely.

The novels The Scent of Rain in the Balkans and Linden Blossom in the Balkans became the models for very successful television series. The writer has received numerous awards from several countries in the former Yugoslavia.

Works

"The scent of rain in the Balkans"

Gordana Kuić's first work and her greatest success to date was published in 1986. It tells the story of the Sephardic-Jewish Salom family from Sarajevo, whose life took a dramatic turn after the First World War . Kuić describes five women's fates in a time of great social upheaval. Against the panorama of the political events between 1914 and 1945, the five daughters - Nina, Buka, Klara, Blanki and Riki - are looking for self-fulfillment and love, and in doing so, they break new ground, regardless of ethnic and denominational barriers.

The author describes a lost world and the destroyed culture of peaceful coexistence between Bosnian-Jewish , Muslim , Serbian-Orthodox and Catholic people in Sarajevo at that time.

Quote

“People breathed fog and drank rain. It rattled down so hard and persistently, as if the drops would bounce off the ground and return to the sky, only to fall back down from there. The city was trapped in blindness. Then suddenly a ray of light cut through the fog and revealed the walls of houses in distant alleys. Blanki's train to her hometown jerked through this path of light and sun. Sarajevo. "

- Gordana Kuić : The scent of rain in the Balkans

Reception, stage and television versions

The novel was a surprise hit with both audiences and critics. David Albahari praised the work as "a significant contribution to the rather modest Jewish literature in Serbia , which, however, grows beyond its borders and can undoubtedly claim overarching significance." In the original language, 22 editions have appeared so far. The novel has since been translated into several languages, and the work in German was first published in 2015 in the fiction section of the Viennese publisher Hollitzer .

In 1992 a ballet version of the novel with music by the Croatian composer Igor Kuljerić was premiered in Sarajevo and presented a week later in Belgrade . A stage version by Nebojša Romčević was premiered on April 12, 2009 in Belgrade's Madlenianum , with Sloboda Mićalović and Vuk Kostić in the leading roles. In 2010, Ljubiša Samardžić created a television version of the novel, which was broadcast by RTS .

Publications

Novels

  • Miris kiše na Balkanu. 1986.
    • French: Parfum de pluie sur les Balkans. L'Age D'Homme, Lausanne 2000, ISBN 978-282511296-0 .
    • English: The Scent of Rain in the Balkans. Alnari, 2010, ISBN 978-86-7710-423-8 .
    • German: The scent of rain in the Balkans. Hollitzer Verlag, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-99012-169-6 .
    • Spanish: El odor de la lluvia en los Balcanes. Editorial funambulista, Madrid 2015.
    • Italian: Il profumo della pioggia nei Balcani. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin 2015.
  • Cvat lipe na Balkanu. (Lindenblüte am Balkans, English: The Blossom of Linden in the Balkans). 1991.
  • Smiraj dana na Balkanu. (Dusk in the Balkans). 1995.
  • Duhovi nad Balkanom. (Ghosts over the Balkans). 1997.
  • Legenda o Luni Levi. (The legend of Luna Levi). 1999.
  • Bajka o Benjaminu Baruhu. (The fairy tale by Benjamin Baruh). 2002.
  • Balada o Bohoreti. (The Ballad of Bohoreta). 2006.

Short stories

  • Preostale priče. (Holdover). 33 short stories.
  • S druge strane noći. (On the other side of the night). 17 short stories.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gordana Kuić: Story about my Writing , accessed April 10, 2015.
  2. ↑ Style magazine : Miris kiše na Balkanu ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Serbian), May 11, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stil-magazin.com
  3. ^ Literaturhaus Graz : Gordana Kuić , accessed on April 10, 2015.
  4. ↑ Hollitzer Fiction : The Scent of Rain in the Balkans , accessed from Hollitzer Verlag on April 10, 2015.
  5. ^ David Albahari : Reviews , gordanakuic.com. 1986. Retrieved April 10, 2015. 
  6. ↑ Miris kiše na Balkanu (Serbian) , Madlenianum. Accessed April 10, 2015. 
  7. ↑ "Miris kiše na Balkanu" na RTS-u (Serbian) , RTS . July 10, 2010. Accessed April 10, 2015. 

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kuić, Gordana
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serbian writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Belgrade