France Bevk

Work

Bevk started writing at the age of sixteen with encouragement from the influential feminist editor Zofka Kveder. In his early poems, Bevk was influenced by the vitalist poetry of Oton Župančič and Maurice Maeterlinck. After the experience of World War I, he came under the influence of Christian expressionism which represented a strong literary and artistic current in interwar Slovenia. Some of its most talented representatives, such as the poet Joža Lovrenčič and Ivan Pregelj, came from Bevk's native region of Goriška. At first, he followed their examples, but later moved to social realism. He became known in the 1930s with his novels describing the struggle of the Slovene people from the Julian March to maintain their identity against the Fascist Italianization.

Legacy Although Bevk is still revered as the author of the popular novel The Vicar Martin Čedermac, he is mostly remembered as an author of children's literature. The regional library in Nova Gorica is named after him, as well as the central square in the town.