Steve Tesich

Steve Tesich was a Serbian-American Oscar-winning screenwriter, playwright and novelist.  His work included the Academy Award-winning Breaking Away and The World According to Garp. His first novel, Summer Crossing, was published in 1982.

Tesich was born in Yugoslavia, but immigrated to the USA with his family when he was 14 years old. His family settled in East Chicago, Indiana, and Tesich later graduated from Indiana University. He went on to do graduate work at Columbia University, where he also wrote his first plays.

After achieving some critical and box office success writing for both stage and screen he died in 1996 at the age of 53.

In 2005, the Serbian Ministry for diaspora established the annual Stojan - Steve Tešić award, to be awarded to the writers of Serbian origin that write in other languages.