Julian E. Ruck

Julian Edwin Ruck (born 1956) is a Welsh novelist, broadcaster, and political commentator.

Early life and education Julian Ruck was born in 1956 in Swansea, Wales. He spent his childhood in the Derwen Fawr area of Swansea. He was educated at St Michael's School, Bryn.

Career Ruck pursued a career in law and received his training as a lawyer in London. Later, Ruck worked as a law lecturer in the UK and managed Legal Aid contracts. His first two novels, Ragged Cliffs and Inheritance Lost, were published in 2006 and attracted enough attention to secure him representation from literary agents Andrew Nurnberg. He also maintains a personal blog where he publishes his views. In 2012, Ruck began organising Cydweli Literary Festival. Later that same year, he announced his intention to leave Wales and return to England, expressing "profound disappointment" with what he perceived as resistance to change, "nasty tribalism", and intolerance of anything associated with "Englishness".

Ruck has been a vocal critic of the Welsh literary establishment and its reliance on public funding for writers and publishers.

His criticisms have led to harassment from some quarters; in 2013, he filed complaints with the police after rival bloggers allegedly posted threatening messages, including threats to throw dog excrement and copies of his books at his home. Two years later, he published his seventh novel, Not Yet.

In 2017, Ruck appeared on a BBC Newsnight segment discussing the Welsh language and expressed his opposition to public funding of the language.

Writing Julian Ruck is the author of the Treharne Saga, a trilogy of novels set in Wales. The first two books, Ragged Cliffs and Inheritance Lost, were published in 2006. The book tells the story of two boy sopranos, one Welsh and the other a Jewish refugee from Germany.