Mary Novakovich is an award-winning freelance journalist and travel writer based in Hertfordshire, UK. Since 1999, she has been focusing on travel writing and contributes regularly to UK publications including the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Times, Evening Standard, The Lady and many others. She also broadcasts radio reports for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent. During this time, she has written extensively about the countries of the former Yugoslavia, in particular Croatia and Serbia. Both her Serbian parents were born in the Croatian region of Lika, which she has visited numerous times since her first visit in 1976. Although she has written several guidebooks to Croatia for Insight Guides and Berlitz over the years, she has just published her first travelog, My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia's Hinterland which book has been shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year award.