She had an understanding of life and drama.

Irena

Mirogoj

Klarić

Petra

"It was love at first sight," said the great writer, talking about a happy marriage that lasted more than four decades.

Irena Vrkljan was born in 1930 in Belgrade. She attended a bilingual German-Serbian school there, and after the bombing in 1941, she moved to Zagreb with her parents and younger sisters. She finished high school at the nuns in Savska.

From her childhood, she often remembered her father who, as Irena writes, was a "life pessimist". - When I was 14 years old, I only got his letter under the pine tree, which started with the sentence: "A man in life has no friends, a man is completely alone in life." He bothered me, I had to read Dostoyevsky at the age of 12 and talk about it with him . - she told. However, this is where her love for reading began.

The family soon moved to Opatija due to the father's work, and Irena was left alone in Zagreb. She studied archeology, ethnology and German studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.

She entered into her first marriage, with the poet Zvonimir Golob, at the age of 22. Zvonimir was then one of the editors of the respected magazine "Krugovi". The generation of "rounders" was the bearer of resistance in art - they stood for pluralism of styles, moving away from the prevailing socialist realism.

For a whole decade, Irena wrote poetry, but also worked on television as the editor of the show "Portreti i susreti" for which she wrote more than seventy scripts. In the mid-sixties, she slowly moved away from the surrealism that characterized her youthful creations and began to take an interest in existential issues. She divorced Balog and made the fateful decision to move to Berlin. In her suitcase, she packed only some clothes and a few small things - Kafka's "Diary", a blue vase as a memento of her childhood, and a map of the city, which, upon arriving at her destination, did not help her much.

"The upbringing between pampering and neglect came to an end, that childhood, a failed marriage, I cut the umbilical cord, I was thirty-six years old. Dust fell on the empty room in Bulićeva, the neighbor no longer knocked on the door, pictures and books slowly turned gray. I left with one suitcase and found myself somewhere else, for the first time I was completely alone. Friends standing at the airport waved at me grumpily and with incomprehension." wrote Irena, describing her departure into the unknown in the award-winning book "Silk, skare", a work that changed our literature.

After enrolling in directing at the Academy of Film and Television in Berlin, she continued writing poetry, and she made a living by writing scripts for radio dramas. While studying, she met assistant professor of dramaturgy and writer Benn Meyer-Wehlack.

- He taught dramaturgy. He was known for his dialogues. It was love at first sight. After eight days we decided to be together, he found me an apartment. We got married in 1972, and it was because of my papers, we wanted to avoid that bureaucracy. - she said in one of her interviews.

Benno was having a writing crisis at the time. He would sit at his desk for days without writing anything. Irena encouraged him by telling him that it was just a fear of white paper and advised him to start dictating her texts.

Thus began their love and writing coexistence. Irena typed texts for Benn, until "Šlatenshames", which he wrote by hand, himself.

- Until then, all those years he was sitting in a chair, holding his notes in his hand and dictating to me. Now, when I look at that period, I don't even know when I managed to do everything. I translated a lot, I wrote a lot, and all the time I took notes of what he wrote. - she said.

With the publication of the already mentioned work "Silk, Scissors", Irena became better known in Yugoslav literary circles. Her novel was described as a unique example of "women's writing" in domestic literature, but the author did not agree with such claims.

- I think that they found the phrase 'women's writing' in order for men to put things in such a way that they say - male writers are good, and this is now a female writer. They didn't take the general picture of our literature, men's, women's, I don't know who, but they found some way out for the various praises I received, putting me in the box of 'founder of women's literature'. I think that I am a completely normal writer, and what do you say, Kiš, Benjamin, there are others who are also very similar to me. I don't know if it's jealousy or what, they didn't want to classify me in literature at all, but I was put there on the side, and so, those who want to, can praise me, without being a competitor to men's writing. (...) What I write is God knows how different from what men write. –

Namely, in more than half a century of her writing career, Irena tried her hand at different literary genres and published more than twenty works: poetry collections, plays, novels, autobiographical prose and essays. After the death of her husband, from which she never recovered, the great author "moved her life in the flow". She arranged her husband's legacy, and found solace in writing.

- The key question is whether people are happy today. I am afraid that they are not and that they are looking for something other than what is offered. Optimism has disappeared from society, and this generation, like every one before it, is paying some kind of tribute to the time in which it lives. - she said about her vision of everyday life. When asked which literary genre is her favorite, she answered that she is returning to the poetry with which she started writing. - After all, poetry makes sense because no one reads it anymore. - she said.

Source: Piteša, A. Irena Vrkljan: The main question is not whether Marina Cvetajeva is read, but whether people are happy today. "Jutarnji.hr". Published on March 22, 2012.
Matanović, J. Writing as a Rejection of Burden. "Sarajevo Notebooks" 06/07.

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"After all, poetry makes sense because no one reads it anymore."