Minority writer Florjan Lipuš gets honorary degree from Klagenfurt uni
Klagenfurt, 17 June - Florjan Lipuš, an acclaimed author and member of the Slovenian minority in Austria, will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Klagenfurt next Friday to join the company of another Slovenian minority author Maja Haderlap, as well as Austrian authors Peter Handke, Josef Winkler and Peter Turrini.
Ljubljana
Slovenian minority author Florjan Lipuš.
Photo: Daniel Novakovič/STA
File photo
In addition to Lipuš, the honorary doctorate will also be awarded to Austrian philosopher, author and literary critic Franz Schuh, says an announcement on the website of the Slovenian programme of the Austrian public broadcaster ORF.
The university, which has been following Lipuš's work over the years, noted that in 2018, he had received the Grand Austrian State Prize, but only on the second attempt as the judging panel initially refused to award him the prestigious accolade because he only writes in Slovenian.
Lipuš said at the time that by awarding him the main national prize for arts, Austria "has officially recognised that Slovenian is an equal Austrian language".
The fact that Lipuš and Schuh, whose mother tongues are Slovenian and German, respectively, will receive the honorary doctorates on the same day is aligned with Austria's Carinthia and with what the university is striving for, said Larissa Krainer, the chair of the university's senate, one of the university's three governing bodies.
Born in 1937 in the bilingual village of Lobnig bei Bad Eisenkappel (Lobnik pri Železni Kapli), Lipuš is considered one of the most prominent contemporary authors writing in Slovenian.
The 85-year-old writer has a number of accolades to his name, including the Prešeren Prize, the top Slovenian award for artistic achievements, which he received in 2004.