[2] He was born in the village of Kamenica, a part of the municipality of Ilijaš to a Bosniak family.
He earned his post-graduate degree from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology in 1991 with a thesis on the spirit of modernity in Musa Ćazim Ćatić's poetry.
[3] In 2000, he earned his PhD from the University of Sarajevo with a thesis on Bosniak novelists of the 20th century.
[6] He has been a Centennial Professor, head of the department of Croatian literature and comparative Slavic Studies since 1996.
[9][10][11] In 2017, he has signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins.