Yugoslav intellectual Predrag Matvejević was born in 1932 in Mostar (present-day Bosnia-Herzogovina). An essayist and professor of Slavic literature, he is the author of Mediterranean Breviary: A Cultural Landscape (1987) and Letters from the Other Europe (1992), among others, and won the European Essay Award in 1992. He currently serves as advisor on Mediterranean affairs to the European Commission.