The naked truth: Celzijus and Kiklop

No, the title of this post does not refer to a Greek drama. It is related to a pure Croatian drama, or better scandal, in the small literary world of Croatia. The main character is a woman with the intriguing name Nives Celzijus. I tried to find out what her profession is but as she has no entry in Wikipedia (the Croatian Wikipedia is in its entirety a stub) I don't know much more than that she acted in a soap, sang some songs and did something on television. In short, Nives is a kind of celebrity and these people too often have the bad habit to write a book. So did Nives Celzijus (photo: Slobodna Dalmacija).
The book sold extremely well by Croatian standards. Her publisher said she sold about 45.000 copies, which is a lot in a country where most authors are happy with 2.000 copies. Celzijus's Gola istina (The naked truth) is the number one bestseller and that is the one and only criterion to qualify for the Kiklop prize. Apparently, the Kiklop jury never imagined that the cultivated Croatian people would massively buy a book about sex and violence. Well, it did and therefore the Kiklop committee decided to cancel the prize-giving. A scandal was born. Celzijus, meanwhile, has announced she will go to court.

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