Predrag Matvejević

Predrag Matvejević
Predrag Matvejević on Subversive Festival
Born	(1932-10-07)7 October 1932 Mostar, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Occupation	Activist, writet

Predrag Matvejević (born 7 October 1932) is a Bosnian Croat writer and political activist. His book Mediterranean Breviary: A Cultural Landscape has been a bestseller in many European countries, and has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Matvejević was born in Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the time Kingdom of Yugoslavia) to a Croat mother and a Russian father. He attended Gimnazija "Aleksa Šantić" in Mostar before enrolling in the University of Sarajevo. He emigrated to France in 1991, but from 1994 to 2008 he lived in Italy. He became a naturalised Italian citizen.

Matvejević taught at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle (New Sorbonne) in Paris as well as in the Sapienza in Rome. He is the past President and now a lifelong honorary Vice-President of the PEN International.

He is a member of the advisory board of the left-wing magazine Novi Plamen.

In November 2001, Matvejević published an essay-length article, "Our Talibans", in Jutarnji list. In that article he accused some writers of war mongering during the Yugoslav Wars, among them Mile Pešorda, who filed a defamation lawsuit; the trial started in March 2003. On 2 November 2005, Matvejević was found guilty on the charge of defamation. He was sentenced to five months' probation and ordered to publish the verdict at his own cost in Jutarnji list and to pay 5,000 kuna (circa $1000) in trial costs. Matvejević did not appeal. He stated that an appeal would be an acknowledgment of the verdict and the ones who issued it. On 20 December 2005, the verdict was upheld by an appeals court.