The Modern Novel

Biography

Ivo Andrić was born in 1892 in Dolac, near Travnik, in what was then Austro-Hungary and is now Bosnia. His father, a coppersmith, died of tuberculosis when he was two and he was brought up by his uncle and aunt in Višegrad, known for its bridge over the river Drina, which would be the subject of his best-known novel. After high school in Sarajevo, he went to universities in Zagreb, Vienna and Cracow. He joined the revolutionary Young Bosnia Movement, whose members included Gavrilo Princip, who would later assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, an act which led to the start of World War I. After the assassination, Andrić was imprisoned for three years. After the war, he got a job as a civil servant in the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He was already a writer by this time. In 1920 he decided to become a diplomat and lived in many European cities. He finally became Ambassador to Germany though he resigned the post when Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. He spent the war in Belgrade, where he wrote his three most famous novels, which were all published after the war. He held various posts in the Communist government. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1961. He died in 1975.

Books about Ivo Andrić

Vanita Singh Mukerji: Ivo Andric : a Critical Biography

Other links

Ivo Andric
Ivo Andrić
Ivo Andric
Ivo Andrić
Ivo Andric Biography
His story is Yugoslavia