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Remembering Ivo Andric: Here are a few interesting facts about the Nobel laureate
There are a few legends who have witnessed the two world wars and chronicled the happenings around the globe at that time. One of these was Serbian author and novelist Ivo Andric (nee Ivan Andric), who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.
There are a few legends who have witnessed the two world wars and chronicled the happenings around the globe at that time. One of these was Serbian author and novelist Ivo Andric (nee Ivan Andric), who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. The Yugoslav novelist, poet and short story writer passed away on March 13, 1975.
As we observe the 45th death anniversary of the writer, here’s looking back at a few interesting facts about him.
Ivo was born in Austrian-occupied Bosnia on October 9, 1892. Being an active member of several youth organisations, Ivo was arrested by Austro-Hungarian police in charge of plotting the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914.
He completed his studies after the First World War ended and also obtained his Ph.D in 1924. After working as a diplomatic officer for several years, Ivo was appointed as Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Germany. However, it ended soon after Germans invaded the country.
During World War II, he stayed underground at a friend’s apartment and wrote some of his most important works, including Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina).
Some of Andric’s literary influences included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, Joseph Conrad and Henrik Ibsen, among others.
While he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October, 1961 by the Swedish Academy, later documents would reveal that he was selected over writers like JRR Tolkein, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck and EM Forster.
He wrote mostly about his life in Bosnia under Ottoman rule. The Belgrade apartment, where he spent much of his last years, was converted into a museum after his death.
Here are some inspirational words from Yugoslavia’s only Nobel laureate that have been inked in our hearts forever:
Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.
What can and doesn’t have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.
One shouldn’t be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them.
What doesn’t hurt - is not life; what doesn’t pass - is not happiness.
Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn’t, there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow, hard, bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives.
There is no rule without revolts and conspiracies, even as there is no property without work and worry.
Sadness is also a kind of defence.
When I am not desperate, I am worthless.
