Tomislav Sabljak (91) died: ‘He opened the door for generations of writers’

– The collaboration with Mr. Sabljak was one of the longest and most fruitful that Veernji list had in its long history. Sabljak not only founded our competition, but as a selector he was an indispensable part of the short story from its beginning, and thus for a full sixty years. Veernji list, literature, and especially short stories, have lost their chronicler, selector and man who opened the door to generations and generations of writers. We express our deepest condolences to the family and to all admirers of his work – said the editor-in-chief of Veernji list Draen Klari.

Born in Zagreb in 1934, Sabljak was a poet, novelist, essayist, critic, columnist and author of radio and television dramas. His literary world was characterized by black humor, irony and a combination of the real and the fantastic, from the first collection of poems, Restlessness of the Body, to notable prose books such as Dog Under the Skin.

In parallel with his literary work, he also built an impressive scientific career at HAZ, where he headed the Department for the History of Croatian Literature for many years. He was also the editor-in-chief of the journal Kronika for many years and a university professor. He left a special mark with the capital Dictionary of Croatian žargon, an indispensable work on urban speech.

Sabljak’s life was also marked by meetings with the greats of world literature – he was a guest at Miroslav Krle’s wedding, celebrated the Nobel Prize with Ivo Andri and interviewed WH Auden at the Palace Hotel in Zagreb. He also corresponded with authors such as John Updike and Stephen Spender.

Until the last days, he fought against the “culture of forgetting”, warning about the need to preserve the literary heritage and establish the Museum of Literature in Zagreb.

With the departure of Tomislav Sabljak, Croatian culture lost a chronicler of a time – a man who, as his colleagues say, was an entire cultural epoch in one person.