Vladimir Bartol was a writer, essayist, dramatist and critic. His work received little attention during or after the Second World War, although he expected Alamut to become immortal. In the 1980s the book finally attracted attention among a general readership, then among critics and literary historians and is now the most frequently translated Slovene novel. It became a bestseller because of its genre (elements of both historical and adventure genres) and its socio-political relevance. A look at Bartol’s work from a generic viewpoint will show whether it is also possible to categorise generically his short narrative prose and, if so, how heterogeneous it is and whether the author supplied generic subtitles. We shall identify which pieces can be classified as trivial and which reach beyond the framework of light literature.
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