Josef Urban is a graduate of Charles University, Faculty of Science, where he studied engineering geology and hydrogeology. The former national white-water kayak team member began writing after finishing the "Czech Rafting"an exploratory project mapping the deepest canyons on earth. The successful travelog, The Deepest Valley of the World, came into being in 1998. In the same year, Urban's first authorial film The Testament was made, which won one of the main awards at the IFF of Mountaineering Films in Teplice. The story tells of the author's first solo trip down the Nepalese wild river Buri Gandaki. Habermann's Mill, today a cult book, became a bestseller in 2000, and its screenwriting version brought the Orfeus Film Award to Urban, awarded within the Czech Lion Award (Sazka Award). Together with Dan Krzywon, Urban shot a documentary drama on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, and the film Where the Stones Roll, dedicated to the "Lestina massacre" in 1945.

In 2007 a feature-length film based on Urban's novel and screenplay At One's Own Risk directed by Filip Renc, was made. Three years later, Habermann's Mill arrived in cinemas, also based on the author's screenplay and novel, and directed by Juraj Herz. However, the author explored his Sudeten theme with another feature-length project, 7 Days of Sins directed by Jiri Chlumsky, which won several foreign awards, including the Slovak Igriz Award, and an award at the International War Film Festival in Volokolamsk.

The Albatros published the novel Once upon a Time in Paradise in 2015, concerning the fate of the legendary climber Joska Smitko, who was executed by the Nazis in the last days of the war. In the same year a feature film was released. In 2018, Urban published The Dog Thief, a collection of short stories, comprised of ten adventure stories about the strength of a dog-man relationship illustrated by the legendary painter of the Rapid Arrows Club, Marko Cermak.

On his latest novel, Return to Valbone, the author began working in 2016, when he first ventured to Albania. The destination of his trip was the mountain range Prokletije, where three Czech students went missing in 2001.