Dubravka Ugrešić was born in 1949 in (what used to be) Yugoslavia, in its republic Croatia. She earned her degrees in Comparative Literature and Russian Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, and worked for twenty years at the Institute for Theory of Literature at Zagreb University, successfully pursuing parallel careers as a writer and a literary scholar. In 1991, when the war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugrešić took a firm anti-nationalistic stand and consequently an anti-war stand. She left Croatia in 1993. She has received several major European literary awards. She is based in Amsterdam today, working as a freelance writer. (www.dubravkaugresic.com)