Radomir Konstantinović (; 1928−2011) was a Serbian writer and philosopher. His most famous work is a philosophical treatise Filosofija palanke (The small town philosophy). He won the literary NIN Award in 1960 for the novel Izlazak (Exodus).
Biography Konstantinović was born on 27 March 1928 in Subotica.
He started his literary career as a poet. He published a book of poetry Kuća bez krova (House without a roof) in 1951, but then switched to writing novels and wrote a whole series of experimental novels. His novel Izlazak (Exodus) won him the 1960 NIN Award for the best novel of the year. His most celebrated and iflunteial work The Philosophy of Parochialism first published in 1969. In this book Konstantinović proposes a philosophy of the small provincial mentality as a metaphor for closed-mindedenss and self-protection against the world at large, which resist openness and change. Therefore, creating suspicion of what beyond the hill, i.e., the world, causing anger and hostility against people of other origins. He examines how nationalism and totalitarian impulses arise from what he called the provincial mentality.
Radomir Konstantinović award is awarded every two years in his honour.
Selected works Kuća bez krova (House without a roof) — 1951, poetry book Daj nam danas (Give us today) — 1954, novel Mišolovka (Mouse trap) — 1956, novel Čisti i prljavi (The dirty and the clean) — 1958, novel Izlazak (Exodus) — 1960, novel Ahasfer ili traktat o pivskoj flaši (Ahafser or the treatise on the beer bottle) — 1964, novel Pentagram — 1966, book of essays Filosofija palanke (Small town philosophy) — 1969, philosophical treatise Biće i jezik I-VIII (Being and language) — 1983 Dekartova smrt (The death of Descartes) — 1996 Beket prijatelj (Beckett friend) — 2000, collection of letters Samuel Beckett sent to Konstantinović
References
Sources
External links Special issue of Danas dedicated to Konstantinović, 5−6 November 2011