Olja Knežević

Her fourth book, Katarina, velika i mala, won a major regional prize, the Croatian publishing house V.B.Z.'s annual V.B.Z. Award, in 2019. Katarina, velika i mala was translated into English as Catherine the Great and the Small by Paula Gordon and Ellen Elias-Bursać, and published in 2020. It is thought to be the first contemporary novel by a Montenegrin woman author to be published in English translation.

She has published three novels and one book of autobiographical short stories. Her first novel, Milena & Other Social Reforms, was originally written in English as an adaptation of Knežević's master's thesis and self-published. It was then translated into Montenegrin as Milena & druge društvene reforme and published by an independent publisher in Montenegro. Despite its subversive message that drew opposition from the Montenegrin government, it quickly sold out its first pressing and has since been reprinted. Milena & druge društvene reforme was followed by the autobiographical short story collection Londonske priče juga in 2013 and the novel Gospođa Black in 2015. Her short stories were honored by the advocacy group Amnesty International.

In the 1990s, she participated in humanitarian work during the Yugoslav Wars, and worked as a journalist, editor, and interpreter on a radio ship in international waters. Having studied English language and literature at the University of Belgrade, she received a master's degree in creative writing from Birkbeck College in London in 2008. After living in London for 10 years, Knežević moved to Zagreb, Croatia, where she is currently based.

Olja Raičević Knežević (born 1968) is a Croatia-based Montenegrin novelist. Her 2019 novel Katarina, velika i mala, which received that year's V.B.Z. Award, was translated into English the following year as Catherine the Great and the Small; it is considered the first contemporary novel by a Montenegrin woman author to be published in English translation.

Olja Knežević was born in Podgorica, Montenegro, in 1968. After spending her childhood in Montenegro, she moved as a teenager to California, where she graduated from Capistrano Valley High School.