Born 25 April 1920 in Banská Bystrica into a family of intellectuals and artists (his grandfather was the renowned painter Dominik Skutecký). Karvaš started his studies in Prague at the Czech High School of Technology but because of the war finished it in Bratislava at the Philosophical Faculty where he received his doctor`s degree in 1947. From 1943 to 1944 he worked in Neografia printing house. During the Slovak National Uprising he worked in the Free Slovak Radio. After the war he worked at Nová scéna Theatre in Bratislava and from 1949 to 1951 he was cultural attaché in Bucharest. From 1968 to 1974 he taught drama theory at the Academy of Performing Arts. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 Karvaš was completely banned from Slovak literary life for almost a decade and returned fully as Slovakia`s foremost dramatist only after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Karvaš died 28 November 1999 in Bratislava.
