Although he was born just before the beginning of World War I, Vitomil Zupan did not achieve literary success until the end of the 1960s. In the following fifteen years he published the greater part of his writings. The reasons for his late appearance on the scene were both political and literary. For nearly two decades he was unable to publish because of an official ban against him; during this period he was also imprisoned for many years and ostracized from society. There were also literary reasons for the lateness of his recognition: his writings departed radically from what were for many years the officially accepted artistic standards and the predominant critical taste.

In the 1970s the Slovene literary milieu became more open to experimental and nonconformist styles of writing. In a succession of essays Taras Kermauner, the leading critic from the Slovene avant-garde, prepared the public to...