F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (Saint Paul, Minnesota, September 24, 1896 – Hollywood, California, December 21, 1940) was an American writer, novelist, and short-story author; he was one of the most significant figures of the "Lost Generation" and a chronicler of the "Jazz Age." He attended Princeton University but left his studies to join the army during the First World War. In 1920, he married Zelda Sayre, with whom he led a tumultuous life, moving between the United States and Europe.

He achieved literary fame with his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), which depicts the disillusionment of youth and the changes in American society following the war. This was followed by the novel The Beautiful and Damned (1922), which explores the decadence, wealth, and moral emptiness of high society.

His most famous work, the novel The Great Gatsby(1925), is considered one of the pinnacles of 20th-century American literature. Through the fate of the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald examines the American Dream, social inequality, love, wealth, and the illusion of success. The novel is distinguished by its symbolic depth, lyrical style, and critical portrayal of American society in the 1920s. In the novel Blaga je noc (Tender Is the Night, 1934) he deals with psychological breakdown, marital relations and the life of American expatriates on the French Riviera. His last, unfinished novel The Last Tycoon (The Last Tycoon) was published posthumously in 1941.

Fitzgerald was also a great master of the short story. He published the collections Flappers and Philosophers (1920), Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), All the Sad Young Men (1926) and Taps at Reveille (1935). Among the more famous short stories, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 1922) and Diamond as Big as the Ritz (The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, 1922) stand out.

He spent the last years of his life in Hollywood working as a screenwriter, facing financial difficulties and alcoholism. He died of a heart attack at the age of 44.

Fitzgerald's literary heritage is marked by elegant style, psychological insight, social criticism and melancholic portrayal of lost ideals. His works remain a lasting testimony to the brilliance and contradictions of American society between the two world wars.