Vesna Parun was a Croatian

Croats

Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

.

After schooling in Zlarin

Zlarin

Zlarin is a small island of the Dalmatian coast of Croatia near the city of Šibenik. Administratively, it is part of the Šibenik-Knin County. In winter times the island has a population of 276 people, but from March to October its population grows substantially up to 1,500 people. Zlarin has a...

, Šibenik

Šibenik

Šibenik is a historic town in Croatia, with population of 51,553 . It is located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea...

 and Split

Split (city)

Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...

, she studied Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

 and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences or the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb is one of the top faculties of the University of Zagreb.-History:...

. From 1947 she was a free artist, writing poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s, criticism and children's literature. She translated works from Slovene, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Bulgarian

Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

. Her first book of poetry Zore i vihori (1947) received negative reviews from social-realist critics.

Starting with the poems collection Crna maslina (1955) love was the primary motif of her written opus. Incessantly working on romantic lyrical poetry, from the 1960s on she published satiric verses directed at politics and the erotic. She wrote more than 20 works for children alone, the most prominent and widely performed being Mačak Džingiskan i Miki Trasi. She also wrote several drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 pieces, the most significant of which is the ballad Marija i mornar.

Parun's other significant works include:

• Vidrama vjerna (1957)
• Patka Zlatka (1957)
• Ti i nikad (1959)
• Konjanik (1961)
• Otvorena vrata (1968)
• Ukleti dažd (1969)
• Stid me je umrijeti (1974)
• Igre pred oluju (1979)
• Šum krila, šum vode (1981)
• Salto mortale (1981)
• Pokraj rijeke Kupe kad se vrapci skupe (1989)
• Nedovršeni mozaik (1990)
• Ptica vremena (1996)
• Smijeh od smrti jači (1997)
• Mozak u torbi (2001)
• More jadransko (2001)
• Noć za pakost: moj život u 40 vreća (2001)
• Da sam brod (2002)
• Suze putuju (2002)

Awards

• 1959 – Award for the poet of the year.
• 1982 – Award for the lifetime achievement.
• 1995 – Poeta Oliveatus at the "Croatia rediviva: Ča, Kaj, Što – baštinski dani" festival.
• 2002 – Visoka žuta žita charter at the Poet Meetings in Drenovci
  Drenovci
  Drenovci is a municipality in the Vukovar-Syrmia County in Croatia. According to the 2001 census, there are 7,424 inhabitants, 87.03% which are Croats. The municipality is part of Slavonia....
  
   for her overall literary opus and abiding contribution to the Croatian literature,
• 2003 – Tin Ujević Award
  Tin Ujevic Award
  The Tin Ujević Award is an award given for contributions to Croatian poetry. It is considered the most prestigious such award in Croatia and is named after the poet Tin Ujević.The award was founded in 1980 and is awarded by the Croatian Writers' Society....
  
  , for the collection of sonnets Suze putuju
• 2010 – European Award – Knjizevna opstina Vrsac (Literary Municipality of Vrsac)