to him in the famous "Writer's Club" in Belgrade. One day Andrić sat next to him, and advised him to switch to writing novels, as "no one reads them". Ćopić was stunned that Andrić even swore, as Andrić was regarded a personification of a diplomat and a gentleman. He accepted the suggestion, writing Silent Gunpowder, but only made things worse. After a period of party harassment, he was expelled from the party in 1960. After his expulsion from the party, the cultural centers began to massively cancel hosting of his literary lectures, citing "house painting" as the reason for cancellation. He once asked his [former] party comrades "how long is this painting going to last"? He explained what he was writing in his defense when he was interrogated by the party apparatchiks: "Before you start writing, imagine that 50 years has passed already, that you and those who interrogate you today are not alive anymore, and someone starts to dig in their archives. Write in such a manner that you don't feel ashamed in front of that unknown man from the future." Though he maintained for a while his jovial spirit, expulsion from the party was a major psychological blow. Apart from Tito, he was directly and publicly attacked and harassed by the party elite, including Moša Pijade and Milovan Đilas. He was much more hurt by the attacks from his colleague writers: , Skender Kulenović, Oto Bihalji-Merin, , Gustav Krklec. He suffered a lot, understanding this is a betrayal of the friends. In the years to come they avoided him, "as if he had a tuberculosis". About his social criticism, Ćopić once said: "And I, tired of all that satire regarding petite bourgeoisie, religion, priests, sextons and khawajas, didn't want to close my eyes on social and political issues in new Yugoslavia either". Personal life His father and his uncle, nicknamed Nidžo (father's brother), were simultaneously engaged in the WWI on the opposite sides, his father as a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian Army, fighting in the Carpathian Mountains, while his uncle was fighting as a volunteer in the Royal Serbian Army against the Austro-Hungarians. Both brothers survived and returned from the war. However, Branko's father died when he was four, and his uncle and his grand father, alongside his mother, took care of him. His brother and sister were both killed in World War II. Brother Rajko was killed