Bosnian Authors in a European Window: A Comparative Study

The study compares three Bosnian authors with three European titans: the poet Mak Dizdar to Homer, the novelist Mesa Selimovic to Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the novelist Ivo Andric to Leo Tolstoy. The purpose is to move the appreciation of the writing of the most important Bosnian writers in the twentieth century closer to the European literary community and the wholeness of the literary phenomenon. The secondary literature on the Bosnian authors is too narrow, focusing on their ethnic heritages and the Balkan milieu in which they write and missing something essential to the critical appreciation of their works. The study creates not only the affinity but, more importantly, the amity between the authors. The discipline of comparative literature reveals what is missing in the secondary literature, namely, a vision of the literary universe, inclusive and comprehensive.