Keywords
Croatian children’s literature
walking
flâneur
child flâneur
How to Cite
Abstract
The paper interprets children’s novels by the Croatian children’s literature classic Ivan Kušan, written between the 1950s and 1980s, which explore the relationship between the child and the city. Based on the concept of the flaneur, it is examined to what extent Kušan’s child characters can be read as flaneurs, and it is concluded that the pragmatics and organization of the plot in the form of a quest shape child characters focused on physical rather than cognitive action, and thus they do not fit into the concept of the contemplative flaneur. Instead, Kušan’s child characters are interpreted as street smarts and their relationship with the city is read within the framework of walking as a process by which space (the city) is transformed into a place.
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