Branka Jurca

Who is Branka Jurca?

Branka Jurca was a Slovene writer, best known for her work for children and young adults.

Jurca was born in Kopriva in the Karst region of what is now Slovenia in 1914. After the First World War the family moved to Maribor where she grew up. She worked as a teacher until the outbreak of the Second World War when she moved to Ljubljana. She participated in the Slovene Liberation Front but was arrested and sent to Gonars concentration camp and then Ravensbrück concentration camp. After the end of the war she worked as teacher for a while and then editor of the children's journal Ciciban. She wrote 35 stories for children, novels anc collections of short stories. She died in Ljubljana in 1999.

She won the Levstik Award twice, in 1960 for Okoli in okoli and in 1966 for Vohljači in prepovedane skrivnosti.

She was married to the writer and playwiight Ivan Potrč and their daughter Marjetica Potrč is an award winning architect.