Ivan Cankar

Ivan Cankar (1876 to 1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet and political activist, born in the Carniolan town of Vrhnika near Ljubljana. He began as a poet, publishing the collection Erotika in 1899, and then turned to politically engaged prose and drama. His best-known works in Slovenia include the short novel Na klancu (On the Hill), the play Hlapci (Serfs) and the satire Pohujšanje v dolini Šentflorijanski. He moved from naturalism and positivism to symbolism and idealism, and is considered one of the beginners of modernism in Slovene literature, alongside Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Slovene, and his symbolist sketches and short stories are valued for their originality. He died in Ljubljana in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.