Aleksandar Tisma was born in 1924 in Serbia to a Hungarian-Jewish mother and a Serbian Orthodox father. He grew up in the city of Novi Sad, located by the Danube River. After studying German, English, and French in Belgrade, he began writing at sixteen. During World War II, he avoided deportation by spending two years in Budapest, six months in a labor camp in Transylvania, and a year with the Yugoslav Liberation Army. He continued to work as a writer in Novi Sad until his death in February 2003.

Some of his accolades include the Ivo Andric Award, the European Feuilleton Award, the European State Literature Award (1995), and the Leipzig Book Fair Prize (1996). He was also nominated for the International MAN Booker Prize in 2000.