The National and University Library (NUK) has staged an in-depth exhibition to pay tribute to Slovenian traveller and writer Alma Maksimiljana Karlin (1889-1950), who died 55 years ago. The show will last until 5 May.
The show, which was put on by Gregor Erjavec, features books, magazines, posters and other material, which are all kept by NUK, about this long-forgotten woman of many interests.
The life of Alma Karlin raised interest in Slovenia only as late as the 1990s, although she published 22 books in Great Britain, Germany, Finland and Switzerland in the 1930s.
She became interesting for being a female author and because the end of the 20th century witnessed a turn to different, modern directions, writes Sonja Dular in the brochure accompanying the show.
After studying languages in Graz, Paris and London, Karlin travelled to Sweden and Norway. She returned to her birthplace of Celje after WWI, but soon set out to travel the globe and discover new, unusual worlds.
During her journeys, among others to South America, United States, Far East, Pacific Islands, Australia and Asia, she published numerous novels, reports and articles in various magazines, including the paper of the German community in Celje, Cillier Zeitung.
Karlin, who was of German descent, never spoke Slovenian very well. She wrote most of her books in German, and spoke a number of languages, including French, Norwegian, English, Latin, Danish, Italian, Swedish, Russian and even Sanskrit. Her first work translated into Slovenian was "The Lonesome Journey" (Samotno potovanje), published in 1969.
Karlin published most of her journals and novels in the 1930s, drawing attention of the Swedish writer Selma Lagerloef, who proposed Karlin for the Nobel Prize for Literature, NUK concludes.
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