One of the most widely read Serbian writers Branko Ćopić, author of novels, short stories and poetry for children and the elderly, a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, killed himself on March 26, 1984, by jumping off a bridge in Belgrade.
Branko was an inspired storyteller, creator of interesting and compelling characters and events, and wrote in fresh, juicy and picturesque language.
He was born in Hašani in 1915, graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and participated in the National Liberation War since 1941. He began writing as a student school teacher and before the Second World War published collections of stories “Under the Grmeč,” “Fighters and fugitives “and” Mountaineers.
He has written a number of books for children: “The Road to Cheerfulness”, stories “In the World of Butterflies and Bears”, “Barefoot Childhood”, collections of poems “Fiery Birth of Homeland”, “Warrior’s Spring”.
He received the Njegoš Prize for his latest collection of stories, The marshmallow color garden. Branko Ćopić was a writer of remarkable thought and style, engrossed in melancholy and gloomy misgivings.
Other works by Ćopić include the following novels: “The Break”, “The Deaf Gunpowder”, “Don’t Grieve, the Bronze Guard”, “The Eighth Offensive”, the collections of stories “Rosa on Bayonet”, “The Rough School”, “The Adventures of Nikoletina Bursać”.
Because of their thoughtful but overtly expressed fears that a fratricidal accident could happen again,
Branko became politically labeled and blacklisted by the then political authorities in Yugoslavia.
Branko Ćopić is one of the most widely read and best-known Serbian writers of the 20th century.
TST