Joža Horvat was born in Kotoriba, Međimurje, at the time in Austria-Hungary. During World War II he fought in Yugoslav Partisans, which later inspired the anti-war novel 'Mačak pod šljemom' (Tomcat under a Helmet, 1962), adapted both into a feature film and a miniseries. The screenplay 'Ciguli Miguli' (1952), critical of dogmatism and bureaucracy, briefly brought him into disfavor with the Communist party authorities, on which occasion he turned to sailing.
In mid-1960s Horvat and his family sailed the world in the sailing yacht Besa, and his travel diary 'Besa – brodski dnevnik' (Besa–Ship's Log, 1973) became a bestseller. The second trip around the world was marked by tragedy: Horvat's older son, who stayed back, died in a traffic accident in 1973, and his younger son drowned in Venezuela in 1975. After a period of deep crisis Horvat published two acclaimed novels inspired by these events, 'Operacija "Stonoga"' (Operation "Centipede", 1982), about a search for a lost island in the Atlantic, and 'Waitapu' (1984), about a Pacific Islander boy who decides to sail across a taboo line. Horvat's last work is a memoir titled 'Svjedok prolaznosti' (A Witness to Impermanence, 2005).
He attended the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb and served as a secretary of Matrix Croatica.
Many of novels, short stories, dramas, screenplays, essays and radio dramas and have been translated into at least nine languages, including Russian, Chinese and Esperanto.
Lako čitljivo, konstantno zanimljivo, fino protkana doza humora i ironije, a barbi Joži, prije svega, skidam kapu za snagu, entuzijazam i upornost kako kod plovidbe, tako i kod pisanja ove predivne pustolovine. ⚓🌟
Zahvaljujući barba Joži i ja preplovih tri oceana, i bijah u krajevima u kojima nikada bizi neću! Partizan i svjetski moreplovac, koliko avantura za jedan život, skidam kapu barba....
Not bad, a good itinerary though it can be somewhat lacking in descriptions... But as the author himself stated, when you're trying not to drown or die from thirst, you don't really think about the scenery.
Jednostavan jezik. Knjiga je prije svega dobra jer je putovanje oko svijeta samo po sebi zanimljivo. Pri kraju putopis se sažimlje, gubi se živost pisanja. Podsjeća na članke iz National Geographica. Sve u svemu nije loše.