Narrative
Fear and Courage
Strah in pogum
Edvard Kocbek · 1951
Synopsis
Four stories of the war, told from the side of the partisans. In one, an executioner shoots a man suspected of treason, whom the Germans had held by threatening his pregnant wife; both survive, and they find each other again in an isolated house. In another, two priests confront each other in a church where the country's factions and Italian soldiers are fighting, one turned towards people, the other towards a militant Church. A third follows Katarina, a traitress loved by her executioner and by the whole troop.
Context
The collection appeared in 1951 at the Državna založba Slovenije. It deals with the moral dilemmas of the partisan struggle, fear and courage, guilt and repentance, duty and humanity, in the spirit of the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier, whom the author had met in Paris. Literary critics reproached it for overly philosophical dialogues; the political opposition was stronger, and the regime launched a campaign against him that forced him, the following year, to withdraw from public life.
Who it is for
Four long stories in which the action often pauses for moral discussion; there is no French translation of the collection.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by Britannica as his masterpiece, for having shown the partisans without idealising them; his stories are now read in secondary school.
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