Birth date

28. 02. 1948  [en] Cífer  

Fields of interest

próza, literatúra pre deti a mládež

Briefly about author

The nature of Balco's creative work reveals an undoubtedly independent, outspoken, and artistically matured author. He knows how to create a unique atmosphere with deep understanding for the inner world of his characters, telling stories and developing situations in accordance with his moral and ethical intent. His first book Waxy Yellow Apple goes back to the theme of Second World War but the author adopted an altogether different, non-traditional, non-heroic attitude to this historical period. The war is more like an unsettling and ever present background, the main problem being the moral conflict of the leading character shepherd-father between civil duty and love for his son intensified by his feeling of responsibility. The novella is built on the inner struggle of human action and the need to make decisions during critical situations caused by the war in relation to basic human values. The Swan-necked Violin, his second book, takes place among Gypsies. Their specific way of life, music, love of the young violinist for Šára, primitive courting habits, clashing passions, the wide Gypsy soul, their wandering, complex philosophical and sensational dimensions, working with symbols: violin, wagon, woman, road, razor, tavern, songs, nature as well as issues related to freedom and lack of restrictions, the tragedy of ever-present death and struggle for existence - all these were blended to form a dynamic and capturing whole. With wonderful imagination the author created ballad-like characters with warm hearts and specific morals, great lovers of life, suffering but purposeful, wanting to be useful. His book Travelling Back and Forth is rather similar, only it takes place in different surroundings, in the world of an intellectual burdened by problems and concerns caused by civilisation. Love, death, aggressiveness, desires and dreamy visions but mainly the retrospective account of moral and other values of life on the level past-present-future are basic issues in this novelette. It also shows how the intellectual perceives the world.
Lodgings is a collection of short stories from different social milieu with a colourful assortment of human types and characters of our time focusing on their emotional life.

Briefly about production

prose:
Waxy Yellow Apple (Voskovožlté jablko, 1976, novella), The Swan-necked Violin (Husle s labutím krkom, 1979, novel), Lodgings (Ležoviská, 1986, novellas), Travelling Back and Forth (Cestujúci tam a späť, 1988, novella), The Devil´s Trophy (Diablova trofej, 2006), The Yellow Roses (Žlté ruže, 2009) 

children's books:
Wizard's Christmas (Strigôňove Vianoce, 1991), Wizard's Vacation (Strigôňove prázdniny, 1994) Wizard's Year (Strigôňov rok, 1999) The Sparrow King (Vrabčí kráľ, 2004), 2007 - Slovak and Polish, 2008 - Croatian, 2009 - Ukrainian, 2010 - Arabic 

works translated:
The Swan-necked Violin (1982 German)
Waxy Yellow Apple (1983 Russian)

Biography for author

Born 28 February 1948 in Cífer. In 1966 - 1971 he studied in the Law Faculty at Comenius University in Bratislava. For a short time he worked as a lawyer. From 1973 until 1996 he was an editor of the literary magazine Romboid and then until 1999 editor of the magazine Literika. He lives in the Western-Slovak town of Pezinok.

about author

The concept of Balco's prose lies in a sentence. Every sentence penetrates the meaningful space of the author's vision and eventually, impregnated with deep meaning, finds its place in the pulsating organism of the plot.
(…)
His work despite its wide range is not polarised, there are no opposing poles expressing either agreement or disagreement. It is a balanced whole, firmly held together by the author's gift of perceiving movement as the basic prerequisite of solid prose. It makes him both simple and complex.

The basic meaning of Balco's novel The Swan-necked Violin for me lies in non-pragmatic life intentions where phrases like "being", "seeing", "hearing" and "expressing oneself" dominate over "having".

His prose is an artistically convincing probe into the lives of people whose thoughts and emotions have not degenerated yet.

The unifying principle must be seen - apart from purity - in poetical processing of life experiences, in the intentional search of views from different angles that enable us to explore part of the unknown but intimately experienced world.

Sample

A DREAM ABOUT SWALLOWS MEANS GOOD NEWS