Novak Kristian

Associate members VI. Department of Literature
Novak Kristian

Date of birth:

  • 1979

Place of birth:

  • Baden-Baden

Adresses:

  • Department of German Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Ivana Lučića 3, 10000 Zagreb

Phones:

  • +385 915306951

E-mails:

 

Novak Kristian

Associate members VI. Department of Literature

Academic titles:

  • professor Doctor of Science

Institutions:

  • associate professor – Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Department of German Studies

Membership in Academy:

  • associate member – Department of Literature (5/21/2026 – …)

Biography

Kristian Novak (born 1979) was born in Baden-Baden and spent his childhood in Sv. Martin na Muri. He attended the general secondary school in Čakovec and studied German and Croatian studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. In 2011 he earned a PhD from the Postgraduate Study of Linguistics at the same faculty. From 2005 to 2012 he was an assistant at the Department of German Studies, after which he joined the Department of Croatian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka, where he worked until 2021. He is currently an associate professor at the Department of German Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He researches in the fields of contact linguistics, historical sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and the monographs Multilingualism and the Collective Identities of the Illyrians (Višejezičnost i kolektivni identiteti iliraca, Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2012) and To Tame the Bird of Prey (Ukrotiti pticu grabljivicu, Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2025).

He has published four novels: The Hanged (Obješeni, Čakovec: Insula, 2005), Dark Mother Earth (Črna mati zemla, Zagreb: Algoritam 2014, OceanMore 2017), Gypsy, but the Fairest of them all (Ciganin, ali najljepši, Zagreb: OceanMore, 2016), and The Case of One’s Own Peril (Slučaj vlastite pogibelji, Zagreb: OceanMore, 2023).

He has received two Gjalski Awards, the Fran Galović Award, the annual Vladimir Nazor Award, two Tportal Novel of the Year awards, the Fric Award, the Meša Selimović Award, and three Booktiga awards. The award-winning theatrical productions Črna mati zemla (ZKM) and Ciganin, ali najljepši (HNK) have remained in repertoires for a 9 years, and shortly after the release of the novel The Case of One’s Own Peril the eponymous play premiered in a coproduction of HNK Varaždin and HNK Ivana pl. Zajca in Rijeka. His novels have also been adapted into radio dramas and have appeared in several foreign editions.

He edited the novels Only One Among Many by Petra Prtajin (Samo jedna od, Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak, 2025), Giant by Nataša Govedić (Div, Zagreb: Fraktura, 2025), and the poem School by Gloria Lujanović (Škola, Zagreb: OceanMore, 2025).

He is a member of the Croatian Writers’ Society and the Croatian Association for Applied Linguistics. Married, father of three, he lives in Zagreb