Torn Canvas
"Here is the breath-taking autobiography of a youth lived dangerously, divided between studying art in Budapest and working in the underground movements in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Zeljko Kujundzic wished to be left to lead his own life as an artist, but with the invasion of his native Yugoslavia he soon found himself wanted by the police. Eventually captured, he is put to work in a Nazi slave battalion building fortifications on the Russian front. With the German retreat in 1944 Kujundzic escaped to the Russians, only to find himself in another labour battalion, this time on a journey to Siberia. Another escape follows, and after a thousand mile walk through the Ukraine and Russian occupied Rumania, Kujundzic returned to Yugoslavia in time to join Tito's partisans.
Horrified by the mass executions, the ruthless denial of freedom in post-war Yugoslavia, Kujundzic returns to his art studies in Budapest. But the Communists were rapidly gaining power there also, forcing Kujundzic to make his final escape to freedom - and the West.
Kujundzic has come out with his spirit unbroken. "My life has" he writes "been enriched by its adventure, its hardship and its experience of many countries. I have lived under the White and Red terror, and I know that there is nothing at all to choose between them." From the peace he has found in Britain Kujundzic tells us his story, with its urgent message to the free world."
- from the dust jacket of Torn Canvas.
Kujundzic, Zeljko. Torn Canvas. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Paterson, 1957.
Horrified by the mass executions, the ruthless denial of freedom in post-war Yugoslavia, Kujundzic returns to his art studies in Budapest. But the Communists were rapidly gaining power there also, forcing Kujundzic to make his final escape to freedom - and the West.
Kujundzic has come out with his spirit unbroken. "My life has" he writes "been enriched by its adventure, its hardship and its experience of many countries. I have lived under the White and Red terror, and I know that there is nothing at all to choose between them." From the peace he has found in Britain Kujundzic tells us his story, with its urgent message to the free world."
- from the dust jacket of Torn Canvas.
Kujundzic, Zeljko. Torn Canvas. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Paterson, 1957.
The dust jacket from this edition of Torn Canvas features a three colour lino block cut by Zeljko Kujundzic. (9.25"x5.75"), c. 1957.
A later edition of Torn Canvas was printed in paperback. It features a single colour lino block cut by Zeljko Kujundzic.