Isidora Sekulić

Who was Isidora Sekulić?

Isidora Sekulić was a famous Serbian prose writer, novelist, essayist, adventurer, polyglot and art critic.

Sekulić was born in Mošorin, Bačka, in what is now the Serbian province of Vojvodina. Apart from her studies in literature, Sekulić was also well versed in natural sciences as well as philosophy. She graduated from the pedagogical school in Budapest in 1892, and obtained her doctorate in 1922 in Germany. Her travels included extended stays in England, France and Norway. Her travels from Oslo through Bergen to Finnmark resulted in Pisma iz Norveške / Letters from Norway meditative travelogue in 1914. Her collection of short stories, Saputnici, are unusually detailed and penetrating accomplishment in self-analysis and a brave stylistic experiment. She also spoke several classical as well as nine modern languages.

Sekulić's lyrical, meditative, introspective and analytical writings come at the dawn of Serbian prose writing. Sekulić is concerned with the human condition of man in his new, thoroughly modern sensibility. In her main novel, The Chronicle of a Small Town Cemetery, she writes in opposition to the usual chronological development of events.