Damir Karakaš was born in 1967 in the Lika area, the mountainous region of Croatia. He was a reporter for Croatian daily Večernji list from war-fronts in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. His novels have been translated into French, German, Czech, Slovak, Macedonian, Slovenian, Arabic and Italian. Karakaš is also a playwright, performer and conceptual artist. His plays have been performed across Croatia, Serbia, Germany, Chile and Ivory Coast. His short story collection Kino Lika was adapted for the big screen in 2008 while is recent novel Proslava (Celebration) is being made into a film in Croatia with Pawel Pawlikowski as one of the script-writers. Karakaš is the recipient of several awards in the region, among them the latest is the Mesa Selimovic Award for Best Novel in 2022 for Okretište (Turnaround).