Robert Perišić

Robert Perišić (born 1969 in Split, Croatia) is a Croatian writer, freelance journalist and screenwriter. His books are considered as authentic portrayals of society in transformation and its (anti)heroes.

Perišić graduated in Literature and Croatian language from the University of Zagreb. Since the beginning of the 1990s he has written poetry, short stories, plays, as well as literary reviews in various distinguished Croatian magazines such as Feral Tribune and Globus. His novel Our Man in Iraq (Naš čovjek na terenu) was the bestselling novel of 2008 in Croatia and has been published in numerous European countries and USA. From 1992 to 2000 Perišić was editor-in-chief of the cultural magazines Godine and Godine nove. Since 2011 he is vice-president of the Croatian Writers Society (). Perišić currently lives and works in Zagreb.

Our Man in Iraq is a social novel. The main characters of the novel are the young newspaper editor and his cousin who reports from Iraq war 2003. The novel presents some typical characters and situations of today's life in post-communist countries torn by political and social confusion and it also gives specific view to war by connecting experiences from Balkan and Iraq war. New type of society in Eastern Europe, globalisation, media life, rapid social changes and its influences on human relationships – these are the subjects of Our Man in Iraq, all wrapped in pervading humor and irony.

Our Man in Iraq was the bestseller in Croatia and received the prestigious Jutarnji list newspaper prize for the best prose in 2007. The book was also published in english by Istros Books a house based in London in the June of 2012. Perišić's novel has also been awarded with Literaturpreis der Steiermärkischen Sparkasse 2011 in Graz, Austria. With the title Our Man in Iraq it was published in the United States in April 2013.

Perišić’s short stories with counter-culture temper and vivid characters gave him initial reputation and audience in Croatia and ex-Yugoslavia countries, especially among younger readers. His first collection of twenty short stories You Can Spit On The One Who’ll Ask For Us (Možeš pljunuti onoga tko bude pitao za nas), published 1999, was considered as rebellious at the post-war time and it get lot of publicity as a voice of desperate young generation.

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