Dzevad Karahasan, one of the most important European authors of Bosnian origin, has passed away at the age of 70.

Media in Austria, where Karahasan lived since the beginning of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, reported that he was “one of the most important voices in European literature.”

He was born in 1953 in the southern town of Duvno, today known as Tomislavgrad, and fled the capital Sarajevo at the beginning of the war in 1993. Three years later, the author, essayist and literary scholar became a town clerk in Graz, the Kleine Zeitung reported.

In 2020, the city of Frankfurt awarded Karahasan with Goethe Prize, for “permanent overcoming of borders, be they political or cultural.”

The prominent writer also taught at various European universities.