Zoran Drvenkar's Books

Biography

Zoran Drvenkar is — how can I best put it? — a little odd.

His upbringing was unusual; he was born in 1967 in Križevac, a town in Croatia today, but which was then communist Yugoslavia. He moved with his parents to West Berlin when he was three. Fifty years ago, West Germany signed a labour agreement with Yugoslavia. I imagine there is a fascinating — if untold — backstory there.

Education

For a successful writer, he didn’t do well at school.

“I never finished school and hated the time it stole from me as much as I hated the thought to be interested in things you cannot be interested in when you are 12 – like chemistry and mathematics and why a curve does this and that and why worms have their heads next to their asses.” (Killer Reads)

Though he did develop a passion for writing

“After reading every book that came close to me, I turned very fast onto the road of writing. I was allowed to think and write and express what I wanted, without limits, without rules. I could bleed out my heart, or I could be cruel as hell. It was possible. You can’t say no to that.” (Killer Reads)

Style

Drvenkar’s style is unusual. He switches the narrative repeatedly, telling the story from the perspective of first one character and then another.

“It’s the rhythm, the fluid change between characters, the unpredictability, and the change of voices that keep my writing in balance. Not much is planned there either. Often I sit on one character, and when I notice that he has nothing more to say at the moment, I switch to the next character. This opens up facets of the narrative, and this creates a movement in the narrative that is almost organic.” (Kinder- und Jugendmedien)

He also writes a lot in the second person, hence the title of his book You. He tells his readers precisely what is on their minds and why they react the way they do. It is, at least at first, a little disconcerting. Particularly when “you” have just murdered a room full of people.

“The challenge was for me not only to talk directly to the reader but also to draw him closer to the story. I turn him into the character by telling him what he thinks, how he feels, and where he is going. It gets very personal, and as the reader, you get the good and the really bad characters at the same time.” (Literaturhaus Leipzig)

Writing for Children

Zoran Drvenkar’s books are gruesome. In Sorry, someone hires his protagonists to apologise to the corpse of a woman who has been nailed to a wall and then dispose of her body. Yet he is also the winner of multiple prizes for children’s literature.

“For me, there is no great difference between a children’s book or a thriller. The characters are always in front, and sometimes they are just eight years old, a little crazy and hungry for life. And sometimes they are thirty, very crazy and as hungry for life as an alligator.” (Killer Reads)

Germanic Honesty

Drvenkar has a certain German directness that causes us British to struggle. I’m not convinced he is the easiest man to get along with.

“Sorry, and You were a living, growling fiasco. The translator is a terribly nice guy, but unfortunately, that’s not enough. I have no idea if he was just plain lazy or indifferent; in any case, there were so many timing and grammatical errors in the translation that I was wondering how the editing got through it.” (Kinder- und Jugendmedien)

His experience might explain why his third thriller, Still, has yet to be translated into English. That is a shame, as despite, or maybe because of his apparent oddness, Zoran Drvenkar’s thrillers really are thrilling.

But he is, at least for a buttoned-up, middle-aged, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon like me, a little odd.

“You can’t write without a muse. And mine is a star.” (Killer Reads)

Read more at the author’s — slightly odd — website.