Authors

The poet and translator Hana Gerzanicová, real name Hana Gerzanic-Hons, was born on 11. 5. 1928 in Plzen. After grammar school, she studied at the Arts Faculty of Charles University, but immediately afterwards (1950) she emigrated to Australia via the Federal Republic of Germany, for which she was sentenced in her absence to seventeen years’ imprisonment.

Pavel Göbl (born 7th April 1967 in Uherské Hradiště) is a Czech film director, screenwriter and novelist. He grew up and went to school in Uherský Brod. He studied at Zlín film school and then at FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) from 1995-2002, where he studied directing for film and television. He lives in Valašské Meziříče, Varnsdorf and Prague.

The poet Jiří Gold was born in Ostrava on 17 January 1936. He read dramaturgy at the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU), Prague. From 1962 to 1990 he worked as a dramaturg for Krátký film (Film Shorts), Prague; from 1990 to 2003, he was Head of Dramaturgy in the Documentary Film Studio of Czech TV, retiring in 2003. He made or helped to make the film shorts Vidíš-li poutníka (If You See a Traveller, 1966), Kulhavý poutník Josef Čapek (J. Č, Pilgrim with a Limp, 1967), Zaklínání (Casting a Spell, 1969) and Smetiště (Scrapheap, 1969). He lives in Prague.

Arnošt Goldflam is a writer-director and director-dramatist who was born in 1946 in Brno. He failed to complete his studies of Medicine, was engaged as a manual worker and a clerk, and was a member of Jan Novák’s humorous “Brno Bohemia” group. He has also been active in the plastic arts. Between 1972 and 1976 he studied Theatre Direction at JAMU [Janáček Academy of Music and Drama] in Brno. In the early 1970s Goldflam was an actor at the Husa na provázku [Goose on a String] theatre, and he also worked with several other companies. In 1977 he was appointed actor and director at the Haná Theatre, which at that time was in Prostějov. Since 2003 he has been engaged by the Klicper Theatre in Hradec Králové.He also does film and television work.

Writer, translator, author of radio plays and children’s books. Bohumila Grögerová was born in Prague in 1921 in the family of a former officer of the Czechoslovak Legions. After graduation from the City Lyceum for Girls, she went to work at the military publishing house Naše vojsko in 1951; in 1972 she began work at the Central Office of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information. Since 1980, she has officially been a pensioner. In 1952, she met Josef Hiršal (1920–2003), her lifelong companion in translation and literary work; their joint bibliography reaches over 180 titles. She currently lives in Prague.

The writer Jiří Gruša was born on November 10th 1938 into the family of a technical official. From 1957 he lived in Prague. He studied philosophy and history at the Arts Faculty of Charles University and graduated in 1962 with his work on the philosophical ideas of Václav Černý. In 1964 he became one of the co-founders of the magazine Tvář (Face). From 1966 he became the editor of the weekly Nové knihy (New Books) and then later of the quarterly Výběr z nejzajímavějších knih (A Selection from the Most Interesting Books). From 1969-1970 he was taken to court for publicising excerpts from the novel Mimner in Sešitech pro literaturu a diskusi (Notebooks for Literature and Discussion). From 1970-1971 he worked as a publicity and advertising agent and was an external associate with the theatre company Krejčova Divadla Za branou. In the 1970s he worked as a business psychologist, a librarian, a building site foreman and an official in several Prague building cooperatives. In 1977 he became a signatory of Charter 77. In 1981 he received a literary grant in the USA. From that time his citizenship was revoked and he therefore from 1982-1990 lived in Germany where he worked as a writer and translator. In Bonn, among other things, he was a city notary. In 1990 he had his citizenship reinstated. In that year he became an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from January 1991 he was the ambassador in Germany. From 1997-1998 he was the government minister for education. In November 2003 he was elected president of the International PEN Club. Since 2005 he has been the director of the Diplomatische Akademie Vienna. For his collection of poetry, Wacht am Rhein aneb Putovní ghetto (The Watch on the Rhine), Gruša was awarded the 2002 Magnesia Litera prize and the Jaroslav Seifert Prize. In 1996 he was awarded the Andrea Gryphia prize for his poetry collection Der Babylonwald a Wandersteine written in German.