Serbian writer, playwright and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art (SANU), Dragoslav Mihailović, also known as the Serbian Solzhenitsyn, has died at the age of 93.
His best-known novel, published in 1968, was “When Pumpkins Bloomed”. His work has been translated into thirteen languages and his books are required reading in Serbian high schools. Mihailović also wrote a novel called “Goli Otok” in which he describes the fifteen months he spent in a forced labour camp, opened during Josip Broz Tito’s rule. Until 1956, following the Tito–Stalin split and throughout the Informbiro period, it was used to incarcerate political prisoners. These included known and alleged Stalinists, but also other Communist Party of Yugoslavia members or even non-party citizens (writers, intellectuals, activists) accused of exhibiting sympathy or leanings towards the Soviet Union.
In addition to his nine novels, Mihailović wrote short stories and plays, and his novels were adapted for the stage and film. He had a significant impact on the Serbian literary scene, his characters are quoted many times, as his popular stories about the average person in Yugoslavia, brought him national fame.
(Politika, 12.03.2023)
https://www.politika.rs/scc/clanak/542218/dragoslav-mihailovic-preminuo-pisac-akademik-dramaturg
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