[4][5] She majored in comparative literature and Russian language at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Arts, pursuing parallel careers as a scholar and as a writer.

Her novella Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life (Croatian: Štefica Cvek u raljama života) was published in 1981.

The novel is Bulgakov-like "thriller" about an international "family of writers" who gather at a conference in Zagreb during Yugoslavian times.

A female narrator, an exile, surrounded by scenery of post-Wall Berlin and images of her war-torn country Yugoslavia, constantly changes the time zones of her life, past and present.

The Culture of Lies is a volume of essays on ordinary lives in a time of war, nationalism and collective paranoia.

"Her writing attacks the savage stupidities of war, punctures the macho heroism that surrounds it, and plumbs the depths of the pain and pathos of exile" according to Richard Byrne of Common Review.

[12] Thank You For Not Reading is a collection of essays on literary trivia: the publishing industry, literature, culture and the place of writing.

She wrote critically about nationalism, the stupidity and the criminality of war, and soon became a target of parts of the Croatian media, fellow writers and public figures.

She continued to write about the dark sides of modern societies, about the "homogenization" of people induced by media, politics,[16] religion, common beliefs and the marketplace (Europe in Sepia).