The library in Sutivan launched a project to create a collection of books featuring emigrant literature under the title Second Homeland, which has been encouraged by the National and University Library in Zagreb, the State Office for Croats Abroad, the Croatian embassy in Santiago de Chile, the CHF headquarters in Zagreb and by Croatian communities around the world.
A commemoration was held at the Antonio Rendić public library in Sutivan on September 12th in honour of Pepita Turina, a Chilean writer of Croatian extraction. The event was organised in collaboration between the library and the Split branch office of the CHF, officially reaffirming the intensive cooperation of the library and the CHF.
The library in Sutivan, namely, launched a project to create a collection of books featuring emigrant literature under the title Second Homeland (Druga domovina), which has been encouraged by the National and University Library in Zagreb, the State Office for Croats Abroad, the Croatian embassy in Santiago de Chile, the CHF headquarters in Zagreb and by Croatian communities around the world. The library in Sutivan has collected 130 titles and the Split branch office of the CHF has prepared a donation of a further 330 titles to be presented soon to the director of the library in Sutivan Franjo Mlinac. This will bring emigrant literature to one location, published on the Internet and available to everyone.
Given that this year has seen Chilean writers of Croatian origin filling the columns of Chilean newspapers – with Antonio Scarmeta winning the National Prize, Patricia Stambuk becoming a corresponding member of the Chilean Language Academy, and the celebration of the one hundredth birthday of the late Rajmund Kupareo – it is entirely appropriate that a memorial of a writer of the calibre of Pepita Turina be held at the library.
Pepita Turina was born in Punta Arenas in 1907, at a time when not much importance was attached to the education of women. It was all the more difficult for her to win the admiration of the literary scene, to earn all the awards she won and to publish a number of works in literature. Among other things she was one of the founders of an experimental theatre group and a friends of books society. Her husband was academician Oreste Plath. Daughter Karen Muller Turina now attends to the legacy of her parents and has made a great contribution and given her support to the Second Homeland collection.
The evening dedicated to Pepita Turina was opened by the library’s director Franjo Mlinac, with a screening of a film about the writer prepared by the head of the Split branch office of the CHF Branka Bezić Filipović.