Born in Warsaw in 1964, she is a poet, novelist and writer of screenplays for films about art. A graduate in Psychology of the Academy of Catholic Theology, she has lectured at universities in Rome and Praetoria.
She debuted in 1989 with a poetry book Ruchoma rzeczywistość / Moving Reality. Her first novel, Białe klisze / White films, published in 1991, was awarded with Iwaszkiewicz and St. Piętak prizes. 'I am interested in the human being standing in front of many truths, with no guarantee of finding himself' - writes Rudzka not only about White films. The ascetic form of the novel, filled with archetypical motifs is still fascinating. Her second novel Uczty i głody / Feasts and Hungers (1995) is set in two interwining worlds: ancient Egypt and contemporary Italy. It speaks of the nature of desire and satisfaction, of time and magical space. The novel Pałac Cezarów / Ceasars' Palace (1997) is a story of women spending the last summer before the end of apartheid on a farm in South Africa. It is a story about people born 'under the same star, which buried their destiny of eternal drought, enlighting their attachment to life. A life which is a nostalgy taken anywhere, even to the places that are the most missed' (Ceasars' Palace). In 2004 Rudzka published another novel - Dziewczyny Bonda / Bond's Girls, a comical story with the author of erotic self-help books as the main protagonist. In 2006 Ślicznotka doktora Josefa / Doctor Josef's Beauty was published: the author focuses in the 'martyr of old age', telling the story of protagonists imprisoned both in a nursing home and in their weakening bodies.
Rudzka's prose is marked by a search for the appropriate rhythms and melodies to set free a new language conveying the sensualism of feasts and the hungers of human passion. Her prose is characteristically fragmented, an open-ended "narrative jazz" imbued with poetic elements.
"I feel, think and write in images, impressions, touch, smells. The world that I have been allowed to perceive is not linguistic." (Zyta Rudzka)
As a playwright she debuted with Fruwanie dla ornitologów / Flying for ornitologists, staged by Marcin Sosnowski in Bajka Theatre (2004) under the title Seks, chemia i latanie / Sex, chemistry and flying (2005). Her second play Cukier Stanik won the first prize in the Forum Dramatu contest in Łódź (2007) and was shortlisted for the Gdynia Drama Award (2008). Her following plays were Eskimos w podróży służbowej / Eskimo on a business trip (2009), Pęknięta, obwiązana nitką / Broken, tied with a String (2010), Ten się śmieje, kto ma zęby / Laugs, who has teeth (2010) and Zimny bufet / Cold Buffet (2011). The last of the plays won the Gdynia Drama Award in 2011.
Her dramas were published in Dialog and Notatnik Teatralny magazines. Rudzka also writes short stories, which were published in numerous anthologies such as Pikanterie. Opowiadania miłosne / Piquancies. Love Stories (2006), Gorączka. Opowiadania wyuzdane / Fever. Promiscuous Stories (2007), Opowiadania kryminalne / Crime Stories (2009), Projekt mężczyzna / Project: Man (2009) and ORWO (2011).
Zyta Rudzka's works have been translated into German, Russian, Croatian, Italian, Czech and French.
Source: www.polska2000.pl, Copyright: Stowarzyszenie Willa Decjusza, updated by NMR, September 2016.
Selected Bibliography:
- Ruchoma rzeczywistość / A Movable Reality, Warsaw, 1989
- Białe klisze / White Negatives, Warsaw: Akapit, 1991
- Uczty i głody / Feasts and Famine, Warsaw: Iskry, 1995
- Palac Cezarów / The Palace of the Emperors, Izabelin: Swiat literacki, 1997
- Mykwa / The Mikvach, Izabelin: Świat literacki, 1999
- Dziewczyny Bonda / Bond's Girls, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2004
- Ślicznotka doktora Josefa / Doctor Josef's Beauty, Warszawa: Jacek Santorski & Co, 2006