Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić was a children’s author who published Croatian folk tales and fairy tales. The author was born on April 18, 1874 in Ogulin, a town in Croatia. Brlić-Mažuranić was the daughter of a prominent family and was homeschooled throughout her young life. She was the granddaughter of poet and politician Ivan Mažuranić, and her father was a known writer who authored the Croatian dictionary for history and law. Mažuranić married politician and lawyer Vatroslav Brlić in 1862, and eventually had six children. She began to write children’s stories in French, alongside her private diaries, poetry and essays, landing work in educational magazines. In 1913, her bestselling book The Brave Adventures of Hlapitch was published and caught the literary world by storm, even being called the “premiere Croatian children’s novel.” A few years later, her collection of Croatian fairy tales from the Croatian-Slavic mythology, Croatian Tales of Long Ago  was published in 1916. The book was an instant hit, and made a lasting impression on its readers, launching a storied career for her. Brlić-Mažuranić  received four nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and even became the first woman as a Corresponding Member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. She passed away in 1938, leaving the world her two beloved children’s books.