Zija Dizdarević

He was born in Vitina, Ljubuški municipality, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia to Bosniak parents Šefkija and Selima, from where he moved in 1920 to Fojnica. There he spent most of his youth and always came back regardless of all the other places he went to. After finishing primary school in Fojnica, he started grammar school in Sarajevo, and finished it in 1936. This is when his literary and political work started.[1]

In those ages he managed to publish few short stories, and to get arrested for participating in youth strikes. In 1937 he started studying pedagogy at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. His literary works started to appear in many papers, but also his political engagement rose. Even before he turned 30 the World War II started. For a year he worked in Fojnica and Sarajevo as illegal cooperator, thus in spring of 1942, one day before joining the partisan army he was arrested in Sarajevo and taken to Jasenovac concentration camp, where he was executed shortly afterwards.[1]

In his writings, he used authentic Bosnian speech and dialect, spoken by uneducated common situations in their common lives, who were the main protagonists of his works. His most famous story is "Majka" (mother) where he describes the life of a common woman, her devotion to her family, especially her children. The topic of the story is the death of one of her children, who is suddenly hit by a car. The story explains the whole lot of the life of women and the childhood of a narrator (probably the writer himself, but evident is the usage of Ich form).

All Dizdarević's works were published after his death. This is the list of titles and their first editions. List is in Serbo-Croatian, but possible translations into English are also given. There is no record that any of his works are translated into English until today.

Pripovijetke (Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1948), Short Stories

Prosanjane jeseni (Džepna knjiga, Sarajevo, 1959), The Autumns That were Dreamt Away

Sabrana djela (Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1968), Collected Works

Blago u duvaru (Zadrugar, Sarajevo, 1983), Treasure in the Wall

Dizdarević's story "Blago u duvaru" was adapted into film under the same name by Aleksandar Jevđević in 1975 for TV Sarajevo.