Suzanne Brooks-Pinčević is a passionate artist and writer – a passion that has resulted in her painting a series of searing images of conflict in Croatia, and writing two books, one of which has been translated into Croatian and presented to world leaders.
Suzanne is a North Shore local with a fascinating story to tell. She was the result of the post-war reunion of her French mother and English father just after World War II in Sydney; she spent her early childhood in Hong Kong and her teens in rural/small-town New Zealand. She later married Croatian Gašpar Pinčević,who risked his life escaping from Tito’s communist dictatorship.
Suzanne has exhibited in exhibitions and painted numerous commissions. She has also published two books that focus on Croatia, a country she has come to love dearly through her marriage.
“I became involved with the Croatian community at the commencement of war in Yugoslavia when its six republics broke apart in 1990,” she says. “A group of ladies led by Zdenka Batistich established the Croatian Women’s League to fundraise and send containers of medicines and blankets etc. to help their unarmed countrymen to defend Croatia from the aggression of Serbia. I donated several of my art works. I also did four significant paintings of the effect of the war on Croatia.” These were donated by the Auckland Croatian community in 1998 to the new Croatian embassy in Canberra.
Since the 1991-95 war in the Balkans, Suzanne has become an advocate for the Croatian cause. In 1994, after exhibiting her "Liberation" series in Sydney, she brought to Auckland from Australia 200 paintings done by refugee children from Croatia and Bosnia, and organised functions to fundraise for the children by selling their paintings as well as donated works by well-known New Zealand artists. “The events raised a substantial amount,” she says, “which went to five venues in Croatia to help these children, and also children at Starship Hospital.”
After the war, the League evolved into a beneficial local organisation visiting the sick and elderly, promoting women's achievements, providing afternoon teas, lectures, bus and air trips, dinners and social events for Croatian women. “We also do fundraising, especially for Breast Cancer and Starship Hospital. The League has been going for 25 years and for most of that time I have been its secretary,” says Suzanne.
With her Croatian sensibilities awakened by the war in the former Yugoslavia, she wrote her first book, ‘Britain and the Bleiburg Tragedy’, an analysis of the impact of that war on Croatia. This book was translated into Croatian and republished in an updated edition in 2009. It was Suzanne’s first foray into writing in any substantial way and is based around two series of her paintings: The Liberation of Croatia series, and the Bleiburg set.
“I felt compelled to do the four ‘Liberation’ paintings because of the public's lack of comprehension about the war, erroneously attributing the cause to ethnic hatreds and religious intolerance, when it was purely and simply a land grab by Serbia,” she tells Channel Magazine. "Then I did the two huge ‘Bleiburg’ paintings…. Having completed these, I felt the paintings were not enough and a book was necessary to more explicitly tell that story.”
Her second book, ‘Dubrovnik My Love’, was published earlier this year. She held a preliminary book launch in May with the ladies of her Women’s League on the League’s 25th anniversary, and an “official” launch in late September at French Rendezvous Café in Takapuna.
‘Dubrovnik My Love’ had its genesis in an accident. “I had promised Gašpar since I met him that I’d write his unique story one day…. Then time caught up with me! As we were crossing the street, Gašpar slipped in a big puddle. He aquaplaned into the air and crashed down on his back – breaking it! He was rushed to hospital. Luckily he had not broken his spinal cord but it meant several months of not doing much.”
Gašpar was not a reader of fiction. But a friend offered him some books to fill time and he quickly became an avid reader. “He was hooked!” says Suzanne. “I decided that this was what I needed to do for my book about his story. Having nearly lost him, I was spurred on to complete what I’d promised 50-odd years ago.”
Creating a novel was a new experience. Suzanne had attended several writing classes with Joan Rosier-Jones, and she studied “many Google instruction blogs on various aspects of writing fiction”. She also sent her manuscript to Joan. “Joan instructed ‘fix this, fix that, do this, do that’ – and so the manuscript was improved.”
As for the story, “I prodded Gašpar to remember. It was quite fun – like going on a journey together!” she says. “The fiction aspect provided the all-important avenue to elaborate on Gašpar’s thoughts and feelings, bringing alive his days of trauma, his despair, his hopes – and elation when things went well."
“I am fortunate to have had a very multi-cultural upbringing, which has given me a wide view of world affairs,” says Suzanne – though it must be said that despite her international background she was remarkably ignorant about Croatia when she first met Gašpar at a coffee bar in Auckland in the 1960s. She had no idea where Croatia was; no idea about Yugoslavia or the politics of the area. She was, by her own admission, “a spoilt product of the Britïsh Raj in Hong Kong”.
Now, she counts herself as “being French, English, Australian and New Zealand, plus Croatian by adoption and also a Hong Kong colonial! All these countries figure hugely in my life and have made me the person I am. I love them equally; they are all a part of me.”
Suzanne Brooks-Pinčević speaks at East Coast Bays library in Browns Bay on Wednesday 19th February 2020 – a talk that is sure to provide more anecdotes about her life and her achievements in so many spheres.
