Хорват жазушысы және ақын Янко Полић Камов

Croatian writer and poet

Janko Polić Kamov (; 17 November 1886 – 8 August 1910) was a Croatian writer and poet. Although his literary corpus is small due to his short life, he is considered a significant writer in Croatian literature, emblematic of the contemporary anger and displeasure over hypocrisy and injustice of his time. His magnum opus is considered to be his modernist novel Isušena kaljuža ("A Dried Mire", 1906–1909), which contains the psychosexual and spiritual conflicts of the iconoclastic narrator, later described as proto existentialist. The novel, described as the premier Croatian avant garde major work of prose, was printed for the first time in 1956, nearly 46 years after Polić Kamov's death. Because of that he earned a reputation as one of the greatest rebels and iconoclasts in the history of Croatian culture.

He was born in Sušak, Rijeka on 17 November 1886, the thirteenth of fourteen children born to hr and Gemma (efn|Also recorded as Gerbaz, in accordance with German orthographic conventions. Polić was familiar with literature early in his life, where his father's expansive library provided him with ample exposure to Croatian literature and his father's connections as a public employee and staunch supporter of the nationalist Party of Rights made his father friends with many notable Croats of the period, such as hr, hr, Ante Starčević, and Frano Supilo. Ante was also a correspondent of Josip Juraj Strossmayer and Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević. With hr in 1903, Ante published and managed a newspaper in support of the Pure Party of Rights, with Politeo serving as editor in chief. In 1902, the family's wealth collapsed after two of the daughters died of tuberculosis and the family relocated to Zagreb. Because of his participation in — and an altercation with the police at — the demonstration against the Hungarian then ban Khuen Héderváry, he was sentenced to three months in prison in 1903. After his release, he left Zagreb to travel with an acting troupe across Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. While in Montenegro, the troupe performed for Nikola I of Montenegro, with Polić working as a prompter in a production of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. His writings have been variously labeled as proto modernist, avant garde, absurdist, existentialist, futurist and surrealist, and is considered to be a highly original author for the period. His work paved way and influenced later Croatian authors such as Miroslav Krleža and Antun Branko Šimić. A number of his works have been translated into English during the 90s such as Sloboda (Freedom) or Žalost (Sorrow), which led the American literary theorist Geoffrey Hartman to describe him as the biggest literary discovery during that period.