Aleksa Djilas is a writer, sociologist, historian and television presenter. He studied philosophy at the universities of Belgrade, Vienna and Graz, and sociology at Birkbeck College in London and the London School of Economics. Owing to the support he gave to dissidents and political prisoners, he was granted asylum in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1990. Among his best-known books are The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919-1953 (1991) and Najteze pitanje. Eseji (‘The Hardest Question. Essays’, 2005).