Ivan Cankar

Slovenian novelist and playwright. After graduating from the Technical School in Ljubljana, he went on to the Technical University in Vienna but dropped out to devote himself to writing. He started out as a poet but later switched to prose. He was a frugal man, addicted to alcohol and lived a life of poverty in a foreign land, but he believed in the goodness of human beings, was filled with a sense of justice, stood on the side of the oppressed and sharply criticized social evils. He excelled in short stories full of bitter satire and rich lyricism, and portrayed the society of his time with powerful writing. His novels The Stranger (1901), On the Slope (1902), and Martin Katzur (1906), his unfinished autobiographical novel My Life (1914), and his play The Servants (1910) are highly acclaimed.

[Kurihara Shigeru]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

スロベニアの小説家、劇作家。リュブリャーナの工業学校を卒業後、ウィーンの工科大学に進むが中退し、創作に専心。最初は詩人として出発したが、のち散文に転じた。蒲柳(ほりゅう)の質のうえ酒に耽溺(たんでき)、困窮の生活を異郷の地で送るが、人間の善性を信じ、正義感にあふれ、抑圧された人々の側にたち、社会悪に対して鋭い批判を浴びせた。辛辣(しんらつ)な風刺と豊かな叙情性に満ちた短編連作を得意とし、同時代の社会を力強い筆致で描いた。小説『異邦人』（1901）、『斜面にて』（1902）、『マルチン・カチュール』（1906）、未完の自伝小説『わが生活』（1914）、戯曲『召使たち』（1910）などは評価が高い。

［栗原成郎］

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