Drago Jančar (pronounced [ˈdɾáːɡɔ ˈjàːntʃaɾ]; born 13 April 1948) is a Slovenian writer, playwright and essayist. Jančar is one of the best-known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also known for his political commentaries and civic engagement. Jančar's novels, essays, and short stories have been translated into 21 languages and published in Europe, Asia, and the United States. The most numerous translations are into German, followed by Czech and Croatian. His plays have also been staged by a number of foreign theatres, and in Slovenia they are frequently considered the highlights of the theatrical season. He lives and works in Ljubljana.

He was born in Maribor, an industrial center in what was then the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Slovenia. His father, originally from the Prekmurje region, joined the Slovene Partisans during World War II. Jančar studied law in his home town. While a student, he became the chief editor of the student journal Katedra; he soon came into conflict with the communist establishment because he published some articles critical of the ruling regime. He had to leave the journal. He soon found a job as an assistant at the Maribor daily newspaper Večer. In 1974 he was arrested by the Yugoslav authorities for bringing to Yugoslavia a booklet entitled V Rogu ležimo pobiti (We Lie Killed in the Rog Forest), which he had bought in nearby Austria and loaned to some friends. The booklet was a survivor's account of the Kočevski Rog massacres of the Slovene Home Guard war prisoners perpetrated by Josip Broz Tito's regime in May 1945. He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for "spreading hostile propaganda" but was released after three months. Immediately after his release, he was called up for military service in southern Serbia, where he was subjected to systematic harassment by his superiors due to his "criminal record".

After completing military service, Jančar briefly returned to Večer, but he was allowed to perform only administrative work. He decided to move to Ljubljana, where he came into contact with several influential artists and intellectuals who were also critical of the cultural policies of the communist establishment, among them Edvard Kocbek, Ivan Urbančič, Alenka Puhar, Marjan Rožanc, and Rudi Šeligo. Between 1978 and 1980, he worked as a screenwriter in the film studio Viba Film, but he quit because his adaptation of Vitomil Zupan's script for Živojin Pavlović's movie See You in the Next War was censored. In 1981, he worked as a secretary for the Slovenska matica publishing house, where he is now an editor. In 1982, he was among the co-founders of the journal Nova revija, which soon emerged as the major alternative and opposition voice in communist Slovenia. He also befriended Boris Pahor, a Slovene writer from Trieste who wrote about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. Jančar has frequently pointed out Pahor's profound influence on him, especially in the essay "The Man Who Said No" (1990), one of the first comprehensive assessments of Pahor's literary and moral role in the post-war era in Slovenia.

Early in his career, Jančar was not allowed to publish his works; however, when Kardelj's and Tito's deaths in the late 1970s led to gradual liberalisation, he was able to work as a screenwriter and playwright. In the mid-1980s, he gained initial success with his novels and short stories, and his plays earned recognition throughout Yugoslavia. Starting in the late 1980s, his fame began to grow outside the country, especially in Central Europe.

Since the early 1990s, he has worked as an editor at the Slovenska matica publishing house in Ljubljana.

Jančar started writing as a teenager. His first short novels were published by the magazine Mladina.

Jančar's prose is influenced by modernist models. One of the central themes of his works is the conflict between individuals and repressive institutions, such as prisons, galleys, psychiatric hospitals, and military barracks. He is known for his laconic and highly ironic style, which often makes use of tragicomic twists. Most of his novels explore concrete events and circumstances in Central European history, which he sees as an exemplification of the human condition.

He also writes essays and columns on the current political and cultural situation. During the war in Bosnia, he voiced his support for the Bosnian cause and personally visited the besieged Sarajevo to take supplies collected by the Slovene Writers' Association to the civilian population. In his essay "Short Report from a City Long Besieged" (Kratko poročilo iz dolgo obleganega mesta), he reflected on the war in Yugoslavia and the more general question of the ambiguous role of intellectuals in ethnic, national, and political conflicts.