Drago Jancar has received a number of literary awards, including:
- International Ignazio Silone Prize (Premio Internazionale Ignazio Silone) in 2016

- Best Foreign Book Prize (Prix du meilleur livre etranger) (I Saw Her That Night) in 2014
- European Prize for Literature (Prix Européen de Littérature) in 2011
- Kresnik Award for best novel of the year three times: in 1999 (Zvenenje v glavi), 2001 (Katarina, pav in jezuit) and 2011 (I Saw Her That Night)
- Herder Prize for literature in 2003
- European Short Story Award in 1994
- PreSeren Award, Slovenia's most prestigious arts award

Drago Jancar was born in 1948 in Maribor, Slovenia, and is one of the best-known Slovenian writers at home and abroad. After studying law, he worked as a journalist, editor, and a freelance writer, and traveled to both the US and Germany. As President of the Slovenian P.E.N. Centre (1987 - 1991), Jancar was engaged in the rise of democracy in Slovenia and Yugoslavia and has been described as "the seismologist of a chaotic history." I Saw Her That Night won the Best Foreign Book Prize (Prix du meilleur livre etranger) in 2014 and the Kresnik Award for best novel of the year. In 2011 he was awarded the European Prize for Literature. His novels and short stories have been translated in several languages and his plays have been produced on many on American stages. He now lives in Ljubljana.