Meša Selimović (Writing)

Mehmed "Meša" Selimović (26 April 1910 – 11 July 1982) was a Yugoslav writer, whose novel Death and the Dervish is considered one of the most important literary works in postwar Yugoslavia. Selimović began writing fairly late in his life. His first short story (Pjesma u oluji / A song in the storm) was published in 1948, when he was thirty-six. His first book, a collection of short stories Prva četa (The First Company) was published in 1950. His subsequent works, Tišine (Silences, 1961), Tuđa zemlja (Foreign land, 1962) and Magla i mjesečina (Mist and Moonlight, 1965) did not receive widespread recognition. His novel Death and the Dervish (Derviš i smrt, 1966), however, was widely received as a masterpiece. The plot of the novel takes place in 18th-century Sarajevo under Ottoman rule, and reflects Selimović's own torment of the execution of his brother; the story speaks of the futility of one man's...Read More