Vladimir Bartol (1903–1967) was a Slovene writer, most famous for his novel Alamut, published in 1938 and translated into numerous languages, becoming the most popular work of Slovene literature around the world.

Biography

Bartol was born on February 24, 1903 in the village of Štivan (St. John) near Trieste as the third child out of seven to Gregor Bartol, a post office clerk, and Marica Bartol-Nadlisek, a teacher and writer. His parents offered their children extensive education. His mother introduced him to painting, his father to biology. In his autobiographical short stories, he described himself as an oversensitive and slightly odd child with a rich fantasy life. He was interested in many things: biology and philosophy, psychology, art, and of course theatre and literature. As a scientist, he collected and researched butterflies.

Vladimir Bartol began his elementary and secondary schooling in Trieste and concluded it in Ljubljana, where he enrolled at the University of Ljubljana to study biology and philosophy. He gave special attention to the work of Sigmund Freud. He graduated in 1925 and continued his studies at Sorbonne in Paris (1926–1927), for which he obtained scholarship. In 1928 he served the army in Petrovaradin (now in Serbia). From 1933 to 1934, he lived in Belgrade, where he edited the Slovenian Belgrade Weekly. Afterwards, he returned to Ljubljana where he lived as a freelance writer until 1941. After World War II, he moved to his hometown Trieste, where he spent a whole decade from 1946 to 1956. Later he was elected to Slovenian Academy of Sciences And Arts (SAZU) as an associate member, moved to Ljubljana and continued to work for SAZU until his death on September 12, 1967.

Bibliography

• Lopez (1932, a drama)
• Al Araf (1935, a collection of short stories)
• Alamut (1938, a novel), translated into Czech (1946), Serbian (1954), French (1988), Spanish (1989), Italian (1989), German (1992), Turkish, Persian (1995), Arabic, Greek, Korean and other languages. An English translation finally appeared in 2004 by Scala House Press in Seattle, USA, ISBN 0972028730. As of 2003 it is being translated into Hebrew and Hungarian.
• Tržaške humoreske (1957, a collection of short stories)
• Don Lorenzo (1985, a story)
• Mladost pri Svetem Ivanu (2001, an autobiography)

See also

• List of Slovenes

External links

Slovene Government Public Relations and Media Office Article