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Meša Selimović

メシャ・セリモーヴィチ

Meša Selimović

Aliases: Mehmed Selimović

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1910-04-26 （Tuzla）
Died
1982-07-11 （Belgrade） age 72
Nationality
Yugoslav
Languages
Serbo-Croatian
Religion
Islam
Residence History
Tuzla → Belgrade → Sarajevo → Belgrade

Career

Occupations
Writer, Professor, Art director
Active Years
1948-1982
Affiliations
Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Education

University of Belgrade
Faculty of Philology / Serbo-Croatian Language and Literature
Period: 1930-1934
Year of Graduation: 1934
Country: Yugoslavia

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Death and the Dervish

1966 Novel

Set in 18th-century Ottoman Sarajevo, it explores one man's futile resistance against a repressive system and his transformation upon joining it.

Individuality and authorityLife and deathExistential problems
Translations
  • English, Russian, German, French, Italian, Turkish, Arabic

Bibliography

  • An Insulted Man (1947)
  • The First Company (1950)
  • Foreign Lands (1957)
  • Silences (1961)
  • Mist and Moonlight (1965)
  • Death and the Dervish (1966)
  • The Fortress (1970)
  • The Island (1974)
  • Memoirs (1976)
  • The Circle (1983)

Translations of Works

  • Death and the Dervish (English, 1996)
  • The Fortress (English, 1999)
  • The Island (English, 1974)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
ContemplativeExistentialist
Recurring Motifs
Oppression and resistanceLoneliness and transformation

Legacy

Regarded as one of the most important writers in Bosnian and Serbian literature, best known for Death and the Dervish.

In Popular Culture

  • Murals in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Doboj, Bijeljina

Trivia

  • Born to a prominent Bosnian Muslim family but was a communist and atheist
  • Brother executed by partisans, influencing his works
  • Originated from the Drobnjaci tribe