A HUNDRED EARLY SORROWS

PRESENCE OF AUTHORIAL FIGURES IN THE STORIES OF KIŠ AND KUSTURICA

Abstract

Identifying the authorial figure of a literary work is directed towards those areas within the prose form that testify to the fact that the writer, via the text itself, sends the reader certain signals of his or her aesthetic and all other identities. The relationship between the authorial figure and the subject of the prose creation, especially in the world of modern literature, is defined by a whole range of questions from the domain of literary theory. If the prose hero, as it usually happens, is simultaneously the main protagonist of the narrative, we are brought closer to the author’s view of the world. The choice of the type of the narrative text implies the choice of the hero, type of story, type of speech and type of style. Everything should be subordinated to the whole.
This paper aims to examine the presence of authorial figures in the short story collections Early Sorrows by Danilo Kiš and A Hundred Sorrows by Emir Kusturica. The research has required a pluralist method. The set problem has been approached from the perspective of paradigms, i.e. a basic pattern which emerges in several instances. The conclusion is that these two authors base their narrative text primarily on a story with dynamic motives and autobiographical elements from childhood. Stories are marked by subjective experiences and memories of particular episodes and situations of life which have been depicted sincerely and authentically. Main protagonists Andreas Sam and Aleksa Kalem witnesses all the events and narrate their memories in the first or third person singular. They represent the authorial figure.