He received technical training at the Slovnaft plant in Bratislava. Until 1989, all of his works were published and distributed as samizdat. In 1990 he founded the independent publishing house Archa, where he worked as chief editor until 1996. From 1997-1999 he worked as chief editor of Domino forum, a Slovak weekly publication. From 1997-2006, he was the editor-in-chief of SME, Slovakia’s leading daily newspaper. From 2006 until 2008, he was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Respekt, where he served as editor and contributor. Since 2016, he has been an editor at Denník N, a newspaper and Internet service. He received the Jiří Orten Award in 1988 for his autobiographical novel ”Žabí rok”. In 2018, he was awarded the Order of the White Double Cross, the highest state decoration of the Republic of Slovakia.
