Lojze Zupanc

Life & Legacy

Lojze Zupanc (21 September 1906 – 2 June 1973) was a Slovene writer, poet, playwright and journalist best known for his short stories based on folktales and other traditional stories.
Zupanc was born in Ljubljana in 1906. He trained as a teacher in Ljubljana and Maribor and worked as a teacher in Štrekljevec and numerous other places in White Carniola and the Kočevje area. During the Second World War he participated in the National Liberation Struggle and was imprisoned by the Italian Fascist authorities in 1943. His experiences of imprisonment are described in the autobiographical tale Sonce je umrlo (The Sun Has Died). After the war he worked in Gornji Grad and Škofja Loka, where he retired in 1965 and lived until his death in 1973.
He won the Levstik Award twice, in 1957 for his collection of stories Povodni mož v Savinji (The River Merman in the Savinja) and in 1971 for his collection of stories Zlato pod Blegošem (Gοld Under Mount Blegoš).