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.
In Australia she did manual work until 1952, later she was employed in an office, she privately taught languages and she became a teacher, at first part-time and then full-time, and eventually the deputy headteacher of a school. She gained a diploma in theology and worked as a religious coordinator. At the same time, she also wrote and translated for a secret Czech radio station and actively participated in the Czech community. She returned home for good in 1999. In 2004 she was awarded the commemorative historical seal of the city of Pilsen. She is the holder of an International Poet of Merit Award, conferred by the International Society of Poets in the USA and a range of other awards granted to foreign authors writing in English; she also gained recognition as Notable Czech Woman in the World 2009 (awarded by the International Coordinating Committee of Compatriots in cooperation with the Senate Permanent Commission for Compatriots and the Department of Cultural and Compatriot Relations of the Czech Republic Foreign Ministry). She is represented in more than ten American poetry anthologies. She selected and translated from English the texts of the Australian songs of Andrew Barton Paterson Bush Ballads/Banjo Paterson (Cherm, Prague 2005). In March 2010 from the president of the organization European Circle Franz Kafka Prague, Prof. PhDr. Miroslav Klivar, she received the European medal of Franz Kafka with a diploma for her creative artistic work to date in the field of literature (poetry). Photo from the presentation here.
(The Literary Encyclopedia LES)
This author profile was last updated in 2009.
