Varia

by Danilo Kiš

Ce recueil rassemble des textes de jeunesse de Danilo Kiš, écrits et publiés durant ses années d’études en littérature comparée et la première décennie de son activité d’écrivain : des articles, qui permettent de reconstituer le climat artistique de l’époque (métier d’écrivain, goûts du public, réflexions socio-esthétiques) ; des essais, où se dessine clairement la figure du rebelle confronté au « statut ontologique du monde » et où la poésie occupe une place importante ; des nouvelles, esquisses de ses futurs romans ; des interviews, qui soulignent la sensibilité de Kiš aux phénomènes de violence idéologique de notre temps, en particulier à l’antisémitisme.
Aux lecteurs familiers de son œuvre, ces textes offrent un subtil « portrait de l’artiste en jeune homme ». Aux autres, ils donneront envie de découvrir ce qu’a produit une telle énergie intellectuelle chez un jeune écrivain libre et radical, à une époque troublée de l’histoire de cette partie de l’Europe.

Unknown Binding

About the author

Danilo Kiš was born in Subotica, Danube Banovina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the son of Eduard Kiš (Kis Ede), a Hungarian Jewish railway inspector, and Milica Kiš (born Dragićević) from Cetinje, Montenegro. During the Second World War, he lost his father and several other family members, who died in various Nazi camps. His mother took him and his older sister Danica to Hungary for the duration of the war. After the end of the war, the family moved to Cetinje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, where Kiš graduated from high school in 1954.

Kiš studied literature at the University of Belgrade, and graduated in 1958 as the first student to complete a course in comparative literature. He was a prominent member of the Vidici magazine, where he worked until 1960. In 1962 he published his first two novels, Mansarda and Psalam 44. Kiš received the prestigious NIN Award for his Peščanik ("Hourglass") in 1973, which he returned a few years later, due to a political dispute.

During the following years, Kiš received a great number of national and international awards for his prose and poetry.

He spent most of his life in Paris and working as a lecturer elsewhere in France.

Kiš was married to Mirjana Miočinović from 1962 to 1981. After their separation, he lived with Pascale Delpech until his early death from lung cancer in Paris.

A film based on Peščanik (Fövenyóra) directed by the Hungarian Szabolcs Tolnai is currently in post-production.

Kiš was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was due to win it, were it not for his untimely death in 1989.