Slavenka Drakulic

She grew up in Tito's Yugoslavia, which united six republics under a central socialist system of government. Three languages were spoken in the state. The population followed three different religions. From 1982 to 1992, Drakulic worked as a journalist for the weekly magazines "Start Cultural" and "Danas" in Zagreb. After the collapse of real socialism in Eastern Europe and the downfall of the Yugoslav multi-ethnic state in 1989, Drakulic published the novel "The Longing Principle". "How We Survived Communism - and Still Laughed" was published in 1991. The writer later commented on the civil war in the Balkans with publications such as "Dying in Croatia - About the War in the Middle of Europe" (1992). Drakulic's further publications followed and were translated into more than 15 languages: in 1997 she published "The Love Offering" and "Café Paradies or The Longing for Europe". A year later the novel "Marble Skin" was published. In 1999 she presented "As if I didn't exist".

After the end of the armed conflict in the Balkans, Drakulic took part as an observer in the proceedings of the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and some courts in Croatia. This resulted in a book about the perpetrators of the Balkan wars: "No one was there - war crimes in the Balkans on trial." The sensational book deals with the banality of evil and the psychology of terror as two major challenges of the 20th and 21st centuries. Drakulic also writes for international print media such as "FAZ", "La Stampa", "Dagens Nyheter" and "Politen". At the opening event of the Leipzig Book Fair 2005, Drakulic received the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding on March 16th. She received the award for her book "Nobody Was There."

Slavenka Drakulic is married to a Swedish journalist and lives in Istria, Vienna and Stockholm.