Vedrana Rudan

Biography

Vedrana Rudan was born in Opatija, Yugoslavia on October 29, 1949. She graduated from the Teacher Training College in Rijeka with a degree in Serbo-Croat and German languages.

Rudan worked as a teacher, tourist guide, a writer for several Croatian newspapers (Feral Tribune, Slobodna Dalmacija, Novi list, Jutarnji list), and as a journalist for the state radio.

In 1991, she was fired from her job at Radio Rijeka for criticism of the president, Franjo Tudjman. After her husband was also laid off from his job, they opened a real-estate agency. Although a final court verdict was in her favour, she was prevented from returning to her job.

Rudan wrote for Nacional, Croatia's biggest newspaper, until 2011.

Since early 2010's until 2015 Rudan was writing about everyday themes on her very widely read blog called How to die without stress (Kako umrijeti bez stresa). She stopped writing her blog on August 21, 2015 because "all that we write about is hatred. I do not know anymore where are we, whether we are in 2015, 1991 or 1941. There is still active hunt on Serbs going on all wrapped up in a struggle for the right of the Croatian nation. Right for what? Hunger, misery, loans?" Her last post "I give up" (Odustajem) was read around 50.000 times.

Literary career

Having lost her journalism job, Rudan began writing fiction. Her first novel, Uho, grlo, noz, came out in 2002. A plotless monologue by an embittered and unhappily married woman, Tonka Babic, this was well-received for its feminist theme and its strident, furious voice.

Her second book, Ljubav na posljednji pogled (2003), was a powerful plaint against marital abuse, written from her own experience of her first marriage. Rudan explained that she wrote it as a catharsis, and to encourage other women in the same position, but added that the trauma experienced by an abused woman could hardly be cured by one book.

By the time of her third book, Crnci u Firenci (2006), Rudan had established herself as a polemicist and controversial author. It was noted that bitterness and anger continued to be the chief emotions of her characters. Rudan continued to inveigh against the darkness of Croatian life. The alternating points of view of the narrators, all members of an extended Rijeka household, were a new development in the complexity of Rudan's work, and the linked monologues were compared to the film American Beauty. But while she was able to portray each of her narrators convincingly, there was little to distinguish between them.

Rudan's next book, Kad je zena kurva, kad je muskarac peder (2008), was a compilation of columns originally published in the weekly Nacional. In them, she continued to deal with issues such as violence against women, machismo, imposed patterns of behaviour in traditional society, political corruption, and poverty. In 2014, the book was adapted for the theatre with the production Kurva (Whore), a show (directed by Zijah Sokolovic) that was lauded as a mix of the frankly shocking, happy, tragic, the bizarre and the real, and captured Rudan's distinctive voice.

In her 2010 book, Dabogda te majka rodila, she turned her attention to the fraught relationship between mothers and daughters. Once again, this book was based on her own experience. She and her mother were not always as close as they might have been; she felt guilt and anguish when her mother died; and felt daily that her mother was still watching and judging her and finding her wanting.

Controversies

Rudan and her husband Ljubisa Drageljevic, a lawyer, were involved in a real estate dispute in 1999, when he arranged for a buyer to deal with her for the purchase of a house, which later turned out to be scheduled for demolition by the Rijeka civic authorities. They both disclaimed responsibility.

Rudan has been accused of antisemitism. In a column in the newspaper Nacional, Rudan has complained that Croatian Jews condemn some right-wing nationalists as fascists while condoning others who have close ties with Israel. In 2009, Rudan made statements during International Holocaust Remembrance Day on a Croatian television channel Nova TV, comparing the situation in Gaza to the Holocaust. She was subsequently dismissed from further appearances in the network. Rudan said that the reason for her disbarment was that the owner of Nova TV belonged to the World Jewish Council.

In 2011, Rudan was laid off from Nacional for calling the Church "a criminal organisation".

Personal life

Rudan is married to Ljubisa Drageljevic, a lawyer, and lives in Rijeka. She has a son Slaven and a daughter Asja from her first marriage.

Rudan has stated that she suffered marital abuse from her first husband over fourteen years of marriage, and she began a relationship with Drageljevic while still married.