Lojze Kovačič (1928-2004)

was born in Basel, Switzerland, to a German mother and Slovenian father. In a 2000 survey carried out by Mladina magazine, Kovačič was voted the best Slovenian writer ever. All his life he was known as a recluse and avoided the commercial literary scene. Besides writing himself, he was active as a mentor to beginning writers and as a puppeteer.

Apart from novels and short prose he also wrote children’s books. His early works were written in the spirit of socialist realism; later he moved in the direction of modernism and the prose of the absurd. His works are largely autobiographical and describe the time of his arrival from Basel to his father’s homeland, then Yugoslavia, where he first learned to speak Slovene. His most important works are Kristalni čas (Crystal Time), Resničnost (Reality), Prišleki (The Newcomers), and his latest, Otroške stvari (Things of Childhood). On its translation into German in 2004 (as Die Zugereisten), Kovačič’s novel Prišleki topped the best novel chart of ORF (Austrian national TV) for several months.