Ivo Andric

Ivo Andric
(1892 - 1975)

Writer of Serbo-Croatian novels and short stories who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.
Andric studied at Zagreb, Krakow, Vienna, and Graz. His potentialities as a writer of both prose and verse were recognized early, and his reputation was established with Ex Ponto (1918), a contemplative, lyrical prose work written during his internment by Austro-Hungarian authorities for nationalistic political activities during World War I. Collections of his short stories were published at intervals from 1920 onward.

Following World War I, he entered the Yugoslavian diplomatic service. Although his career took him to Rome, Bucharest, Madrid, Geneva, and Berlin, it was his native province, with its wealth of ethnic types, that provided the themes and psychological studies to be found in his works. Of his three novels, written during the second World War, two--Travnicka hronika (1945; Bosnian Story, 1959) and Na Drini cuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina, 1959)--are concerned with the history of Bosnia.

Andric's works reveal his deterministic philosophy and his sense of compassion and are written objectively and soberly, in language of great beauty and purity. The Nobel Prize committee commented particularly on the "epic force" with which he handled his material, especially in The Bridge on the Drina.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Andric's life and work are discussed in Celia Hawkesworth, Ivo Andric: Bridge Between East and West (1984), an introduction; and Vanita Singh Mukerji, Ivo Andric (1990). Wayne S. Vucinich (ed.), Ivo Andric Revisited: The Bridge Still Stands (1995), a collection of articles, includes critical analyses of his works.