Editing Ivo Andrić (section)

===Political career and marriage===
[[File:Belgrade Book Fair 3.jpg|thumb|right|Andrić signing books at the [[Belgrade Book Fair]]]]
Andrić initially had a precarious relationship with the communists because he had previously been an official in the royalist government.{{sfn|Bazdulj|2009|p=227}}{{efn|Andrić was perturbed by a billboard that the Partisans had put up in [[Terazije]] Square, a photograph of the signing of the Tripartite Pact with his face clearly visible. The billboard was part of a propaganda campaign against the royalists and Andrić perceived it as an indictment of his actions while ambassador to Germany. In a subsequent conversation with senior communist official [[Milovan Djilas|Milovan Đilas]], he requested that the billboard be removed, and Đilas obliged.{{sfn|Bazdulj|2009|p=227}}}} He returned to public life only once the Germans had been forced out of Belgrade.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} ''Na Drini ćuprija'' was published in March 1945. It was followed by ''Travnička hronika'' that September and ''Gospođica''{{efn|"The Woman from Sarajevo" is Hawkesworth and Vucinich's translation of the title.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}}{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=28}}}} that November. ''Na Drini ćuprija'' came to be regarded as Andrić's ''[[Masterpiece|magnum opus]]'' and was proclaimed a classic of Yugoslav literature by the communists.{{sfn|Wachtel|1998|p=156}} It chronicles the history of the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge and the town of Višegrad from the bridge's construction in the 16th century until the outbreak of World War I. The second novel, ''Travnička hronika'', follows a French diplomat in Bosnia during the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. The third, ''Gospođica'', revolves around the life of a Sarajevan woman.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} In the post-war period, Andrić also published several short story collections, some travel memoirs, and a number of essays on writers such as [[Vuk Karadžić]], [[Petar II Petrović-Njegoš]], and [[Petar Kočić]].{{sfn|Moravcevich|1980|p=23}}

In November 1946, Andrić was elected vice-president of the Society for the Cultural Cooperation of Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union. The same month, he was named president of the Yugoslav Writers' Union.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=28}} The following year, he became a member of the People's Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=28}} In 1948, Andrić published a collection of short stories he had written during the war.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} His work came to influence writers such as [[Branko Ćopić]], [[Vladan Desnica]], [[Mihailo Lalić]] and [[Meša Selimović]].{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} In April 1950, Andrić became a deputy in the [[Parliament of Yugoslavia|National Assembly of Yugoslavia]]. He was decorated by the Presidium of the National Assembly for his services to the Yugoslav people in 1952.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=28}} In 1953, his career as a parliamentary deputy came to an end.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=35}} The following year, Andrić published the [[novella]] ''Prokleta avlija'' (The Damned Yard), which tells of life in an Ottoman prison in [[Istanbul]].{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=35}} That December, he was admitted into the [[League of Communists of Yugoslavia]], the country's ruling party. According to Hawkesworth, it is unlikely he joined the party out of ideological conviction, but rather to "serve his country as fully as possible".{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=28}}

On 27 September 1958, the 66-year-old Andrić married [[Milica Babić]], a costume designer at the [[National Theatre of Serbia]] who was almost twenty years his junior.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=35}} Earlier, he had announced it was "probably better" that a writer never marry. "He was perpetually persecuted by a kind of fear," a close friend recalled. "It seemed as though he had been born afraid, and that is why he married so late. He simply did not dare enter that area of life."{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=29}}