Darko Suvin
| Darko Suvin | |
|---|---|
| Born |
19 July 1930 Zagreb Kingdom of Yugoslavia, (now Croatia) |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Zagreb University |
|
Main interests
|
Science Fiction |
|
Notable ideas
|
Cognitive estrangement |
Darko Ronald Suvin (born Darko Šlesinger; July 19, 1930) is a Croatian born academic and critic who became a Professor at McGill University in Montreal — now emeritus. He was born in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now capital of Croatia), and after teaching at the department for comparative literature at Zagreb University, moved to Canada in 1968.
He is best known for several major works of criticism and literary history devoted to science fiction. He was editor of Science-Fiction Studies (later respelled as Science Fiction Studies) from 1973 to 1980. After his retirement from McGill in 1999, he has lived in Lucca, Italy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences).
In 2009, he received Croatian SFera Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction. Also, he is member of both Croatia's writers association, Croatian Writers Society (HDP), and Croatian Writers' Association (DHK).
Recently, he published the series of his memoirs on his youth as member of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia during the Nazi occupation of Croatia and Yugoslavia, and first years of Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, in the Croatian cultural journal Gordogan. Suvin is a member of the Advisory Board of the left-wing journal Novi Plamen and Croatian science fiction journal Ubiq.
Suvin was born in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on July 19, 1930 to a Croatian Jewish family of Miroslav and Truda (née Weiser) Šlesinger. In Zagreb he attended the Jewish elementary school in Palmotićeva street. In 1939 his family changed the surname from Šlesinger to Suvin due to political situation and antisemitism caused by Nazi propaganda. When Suvin was a young child, there was great political strife in Yugoslavia. Originally a monarchy, Yugoslavia quickly succumbed to the Fascist occupation, and then later various other types of government. In the early 1940s, before the end of World War Two, a Nazi controlled bomb exploded close to Suvin, an event that was ultimately responsible for piquing his interest in Science Fiction, not because of the technology behind the bomb, but because he realized in even a slightly alternative world, he may have been killed right then and there. Many members of his family have perished during the Holocaust, including his paternal grandparents Lavoslav and Josipa Šlesinger.
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