Ivana Sajko is a Croatian artist whose work crosses from literature to dance, theatre to music and experimental performance. Despite coming of age during Croatia’s War of Independence, she rejected the impulse to write about it. Later, she realized it had nevertheless affected her and influenced everything she writes.

Ivana moved to Berlin in 2016 where she continued to write plays, teach, and perform on stage. She finished Love Novel, which was translated into English and published in Canada in February 2024 and tells the story of a young couple trapped in the economic realities of late capitalism. An artist and a scholar who can’t provide for themselves sink further into desperation as the electricity is cut off, the neighbours come knocking, and the baby won’t stop crying. Love Novel won the HKW Literaturpreis in German and was shortlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award in English.