Možda su istorija i legenda dve ključne reči u Andrićevoj poetici. Otuda naslov knjige: Istorija i legenda (eseji, ogledi, članci). Tekstove u ovoj knjizi, prire]iva'u su razvrstali u tri dela. U prvi deo, pod naslovom Stvaralac i jezik, uvršteni su i Andrićevi opšti, mahom teorijski tekstovi. Kako je u ovom delu knige poglavito reč o čoveku-stvaraocu i o problemima jezika, stila i reči, priređivači su se opredelili za naslov Stvaralac i jezik. Drugi deo knjige pod naslovom Istorija, legende, poezija sadrži eseje i ogrele o delima, piscima, umetnicima i drugim figurama duhovnog i društveno-istorijskog života. U trećem delu, pod naslovom Povodi, knjige, događaji, sabrani su Andrićevi osvrti na knjige i zbivanja u kulturnom i društvenom životu. Napominjemo da su pojedini tekstovi u obe knjige eseja poenak posvećeni istim temama, što dovodi do delimičnog ponavljanja sadržaja. Stoga se ti tekstovi mogu shvatiti i kao varijante iste teme. Smatrali smo da i takve napise treba uneti u ovaj izbor.
Author
Ivan "Ivo" Andrić (Cyrillic: Иво Андрић) was a Yugoslav and Bosnian novelist, short story writer and Nobel prizewinner. His writings deal mainly with life in his native Bosnia under the Ottoman Empire. His house in Travnik is now a Museum. His Belgrade flat on Andrićev Venac hosts the Museum of Ivo Andrić and the Ivo Andrić Foundation. After the Second World War, he spent most of his time in his Belgrade home, held ceremonial posts in the Communist government of Yugoslavia and was a Bosnia and Herzegovina parliamentarian. He was also a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country". He donated the prize money to libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His works include The Bridge on the Drina, Bosnian Chronicle (aka Chronicles of Travnik), and The Woman from Sarajevo. These were written during WW2 while he was living quietly in Belgrade and published in 1945. They are often referred to as the "Bosnian Trilogy" as they were published simultaneously and had been written in the same period. However, they're connected only thematically. Other works include Ex Ponto (1918), Unrest (Nemiri, '20), The Journey of Alija Đerzelez (Put Alije Đerzeleza, 1920), The Vizier's Elephant (Priča o vezirovom slonu, 1948; tr. 1962), The Damned Yard (Prokleta avlija, 1954), and Omer-Pasha Latas (Omerpaša Latas, released posthumously in 1977)
