Birth date

09. 12. 1946  [en] Moravské Lieskové  

Fields of interest

próza, poézia, esej, scenáristika

Briefly about author

The stories, novellas and novels of Dušan Mitana are characterised by the contrast and absurd juncture of a simple story or experience with elements of excitement, hyperbole, secrecy and dreams. The protagonists of his texts move between the obvious, the rational and sensible and the irrational and transcendental dimension of human beings; but also between that what conventional society characterises as "normal" and "pathological". Mitana - with his interest in a story with a secret or criminal plot, in eroticism and the metaphysical and religious topics - was from the Communist viewpoint of "the materialist outlook" and "exemplary" morality not
a suitable author for the regime. His short stories appeared first in the young writers' magazine Mladá tvorba. At the turn of the 1960's and 1970's together with Dušan Dušek and others, he represented a new wave in Slovak prose.
His first book of short stories was Dog Days where through thematically different tales he considers the meaning of human existence and its absurd dimensions. The novella Patagonia is a tale about a young person who rebels against well-worn social conventions and seeks his own space for existence. The surface triteness of the collection Night News contrasts with its secret or irrational denouement.
In the immensely readable social-psychological novel The End of Play Mitana creates a chamber tale background of crime and punishment, guilt and confession touching the individual and social morality of the last ten years of the totalitarian regime. The story of a successful theatre director who kills his wife out of affection, where the author courageously situates in the concrete reality and behind the scenes in the Bratislava arts scene to which he holds up a curved mirror. The short story collection On the Threshold is a representative selection from different books and magazine publications of his prose.
The collection of poems Cruelhills and a book of essays and stories, In Search of
a Lost Author were published in the post-Communist period. The latter represents the author's statement about his poetical starting points and philosophical understanding of the world. The collection Slovak Poker offers stories for all tastes, which are unified in a typical Mitana rational-irrational perception of reality flavoured with
a quasi-naive authenticity, metaphysics, parody of present social conditions and erotica.
The recent volumes are the author's selection of stories The Draught and a poetry collection Maranatha in which he continues his own unique confrontation of different religious images of the world, being, good and evil, life and death, and about the different distances from each other's cultures that dominate his most recent prose.

Briefly about production

prose:
Dog Days (Psie dni, 1970), Patagonia (Patagónia, 1972), Night News (Nočné správy 1976), End of Play (Koniec hry, 1984), On the Threshold (Na prahu, 1978), In Search of a Lost Author (Hľadanie strateného autora, 1991 ), Slovak Poker (Slovenský poker, 1993), The Draught (Prievan, 1996), The Return of Christ (Návrat Krista, 1999), My Native Cemetery (Môj rodný cintorín, 2000), Baptised by Fire (Krst ohňom, 2001), Revelation (Zjavenie, 2005) 

poetry:
Cruelhills (Krutohory, 1991), Maranatha (Maranatha, 1996)

film and TV screenplays:
School of Love (Škola lásky, 1973), Dynamite (Dynamit, 1974), Colonel Chabert (Plukovník Chabert, 1976), And I'll Run to the End of the World (A pobežím až na kraj sveta, 1979)

essays:
Sensations of a Streetwise Native (Pocity pouličného našinca, 1998)

works translated:
Mitana's short stories were translated into dozens of languages and published in many literary magazines and anthologies abroad.
The Earth is a Ball (1978, Hungarian)
Selected Short Stories (1986, Polish)
End of Play (1987 Romanian, Russian, 1990 Lithuanian)

Patagonia (2000, Croatian)

Biography for author

Born 9 December 1946 in Moravské Lieskové. He started to study journalism at Comenius University in Bratislava, but after a year he changed to the College of Fine Arts where he studied film and television production. After completing his studies he worked as an editor for the literary magazine Romboid . From 1975 he has been engaged professionally in literature. He lives in Bratislava.

about author

Dušan Mitana's work belongs among those best books, which I have wanted to write.

I don't know why, but Dušan Mitana was for me always a very serious (and sober -
in the good sense of the word!) author although he wished to appear as the greatest humorist. Whether he laughs at himself (paraphrasing the author he is against himself yet is not a solitary runner) the world, or at something? Or somebody? God? Krishna? Lucifer? Satan? And other divinities he laughs mainly at the reader (and with the reader)who believed him and was taken in. (Critics, don't buzz about, control yourselves!) Because to read Mitana's prose like Holy Writ - means literally and for writ - is not possible, it is just strictly forbidden!

Sample

TERRA INCOGNITA (to Ľudo Ondrejov) (extract)