Filip David ( sr-cyr, Филип Давид; born 4 July 1940) is a

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...

n writer and screenwriter, best known for penning essays, dramas,

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

and novels. In 2015, he won the NIN Award for best Serbian novel of the year 2014 for his novel ''"Kuća sećanja i zaborava"'' (''The House of Remembering and Forgetting'').

Biography

David was born in 1940 in Kragujevac to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family. He graduated from both the Faculty of Philology of the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac- ...

and the Academy of Theater, Film, Radio and Television of the

Belgrade University of Arts The University of Arts in Belgrade ( sr-cyr, Универзитет уметности у Београду, Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu) is a public university in Serbia. It was founded in 1957 as the Academy of Arts to unite four academies. ...

. He was a long-time editor of the drama program of the

Radio Television of Belgrade Radio Television of Serbia ( sr-Cyrl, Радио-телевизија Србије, sr-Lat, Radio-televizija Srbije, italics=yes; abbr. RTS/PTC) is Serbia's public broadcaster. It broadcasts and produces news, drama, and sports programming th ...

. In 1989, he was one of the founders of the "Independent Writers" society in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajev ...

, in then-

SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...

. He was also the founder of the literary society "Belgrade Circle" in 1990. This society opposed the then-ruling government of

Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...

. In 1992, David was fired from the Radio Television of Belgrade for organizing an independent trade union. The writer is signatory of the

Declaration on the Common Language The Declaration on the Common Language ( sh, Deklaracija o zajedničkom jeziku / ) was issued in 2017 by a group of intellectuals and NGOs from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia who were working under the banner of a project ...

of the

Croats The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, ...

Serbs The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language. The majority of Serbs live in their ...

Bosniaks The Bosniaks ( bs, Bošnjaci, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry, ...

and

Montenegrins Montenegrins ( cnr, Црногорци, Crnogorci, or ; lit. "Black Mountain People") are a South Slavic ethnic group that share a common Montenegrin culture, history, and language, identified with the country of Montenegro. Genetics Accordi ...

within the project ''Languages and Nationalisms''. The declaration is against political separation of four

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...

standard variants that leads to a series of negative social, cultural and political phenomena in which linguistic expression is enforced as a criterion of ethno-national affiliation and as a means of political loyalty in successor states of Yugoslavia.

Work

David has written several

television drama In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

s, dramas, books of essays,

short story collection A short story collection is a book of short stories and/or novellas by a single author. A short story collection is distinguished from an anthology of fiction, which would contain work by several authors (e.g., '' Les Soirées de Médan''). Th ...

s and novels. Short story collections: *"Bunar u tamnoj šumi" (English: ''"A Well in a Dark Forrest"'') *"Zapisi o stvarnom i nestvarnom" (''"Notes of the real and the unreal"'') *"Princ vatre" (''"Fire Prince"'') *"Sabrane i nove priče" (''"Collected and New Stories"'') Novels: *"Hodočasnici neba i zemlje" (''"Pilgrims of the Earth and the Sky"'') *"San o ljubavi i smrti" (''"A Dream of Love and Death"'') *"Kuća sećanja i zaborava" (''"The House of Memory and Oblivion"'', also translated as ''"The House of Remembering and Forgetting"''Peter Owen Publishers
The House of Remembering and Forgetting
/ref>) Books of

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

s: *"Fragmenti iz mračnih vremena" (''"Fragments from Dark Times") *"Jesmo li čudovišta" (''"Are We Monsters"'') *"Svetovi u haosu" (''"Worlds in Chaos"'')

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:David, Filip 1940 births Living people Writers from Kragujevac Serbian Jews Serbian novelists Serbian dramatists and playwrights Serbian male short story writers Signatories of the Declaration on the Common Language