Svetislav Basara (Bajina Bašta, 1953) is one of the most important contemporary Serbian writers. He has published more than forty books – novels, collections of short stories, plays and essays. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the double NIN Award for the novels The Rise and Fall of Parkinson's Disease and Kontraendorphin , the Isidora Sekulić Award and the Biljana Jovanović Award of the Serbian Literary Society for the novel Angel of Assassination , and he is the first recipient of the Borislav Pekić Fund scholarship for a manuscript in progress. His plays have been performed on many stages, and his books have been translated into English, French, German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Italian and Macedonian. He writes columns in daily newspapers.