He is renowned for his modernist novels in which he described the horrors of World War II, and for the literary depictions of lower classes.
During World War II, he was transferred with his family to the Silesian city of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), and later to Dresden.
In the late 1950s, he started collaborating with the so-called Critical Generation, a group of young Slovene intellectuals that challenged the rigid cultural policies of the Titoist regime.
During his career in Ljubljana local politics, Božič was involved in several controversies, mainly connected with the internal fights within the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia.
Božič's early writings reflect the author's interest in existential philosophy, and show an influence of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco.