Authors

She also began to publish in Literární listy and became involved in domestic social politics. In 1968 her reports from Japan were published along with two similar travelogues by different authors in the book Putování bez fraku. She worked in the university archive until 1976, when she was forced out, and afterwards she had to find work outwith her specialised field. She belonged to a group of Prague dissidents and opposition intellectuals and took part in various activities in the illegal literary movement. After November 1989 and the election of V. Havel as president, she acted as his advisor. She continued to work in this capacity until 1992.

Eda Kriseová encountered several paradoxes in her literary work. As she could not publish her reports she chose a more “permanent” form of writing. Since the beginning of the 1970s she has been writing prose, creating novellas, short stories and novels. However, she was unable to publish her prose work in Czechoslovakia at the time as she was a banned author. Her texts could only be published in samizdat form and by exile publishers. She did not become an officially recognised author in Czechoslovakia until after 1989. Over a period of twenty years she has written eight books, two of which are for children. Kriseová returned to her reportage style of writing when she was working as the president’s advisor and as director of the Complaints and Pardons section of the president’s office. She wrote a biography of Václav Havel which has been translated into seven languages. Kriseová’s biography of the then president was a natural, open and immediate account, like a relaxed conversation in friendly company. The most significant episodes are those which show the development of Havel’s opinions and character. At the same time there is an understandable bias in the text which arises from the friendly relationship between the author and the subject of the biography. Thematically it is possible to divide Eda Kriseová’s works into three strands. One of these is connected with psychiatric treatment or similarly isolated and enclosed spaces. The short story collections Křížová cesta kočárového kočího, Sluneční hodiny and Co se stalo… tell the stories of people who have been excluded from society, not only due to psychological problems. These colourful short stories contain single-minded, stubborn people, confused and forgetful, who even on their final journey take with them their obsessive notions, anxieties and losses. Their physical and spiritual confinement mirrors the warpedness of the time, the freedom of the insane being in sharp contrast to the surrounding totalitarianism that encloses the world. The border between insanity and so-called normality is manipulated through normalization as though it did not exist. The author also expertly describes the tragedy of older people, the bitterness arising from lost and wasted chances, the disillusion, betrayal and disloyalty which can never be atoned for. The crazy antics might appear comical, but as a whole they make you shudder due to their hopelessness. The empathy which Kriseová undoubtedly had towards her characters has had to be suppressed in order to capture the bizarre nature of human life. The novella Pompejanka is one of those works in which she looks at intimate relationships, describing the fragility of the relationship between men and women, the mechanisms which draw them together and push them apart, which can slowly lead to irreparable damage, break-up and loss. It is the same with the novel Ryby raky, an intimate picture of the world of a young, ambitious journalist, who in 1968, following the arrival of Warsaw Pact soldiers on Czech soil, has to face the predicament of returning to her family and sorting out her shaken value system, as though a splinter of purely subjective feelings and perceptions had been attached to history in general. In another group, which could be described as “prose reportage”, are texts in which E. Kriseová transforms historical subjects into prose form. This can be seen in the novel Perchta z Rožmberka aneb Bílá paní, which centres on the letters of a Czech noblewoman from the 15th century, or the novel Kočičí životy, about the Volyn Czechs, where through the history of one family the author paints a dramatic picture of the history of Central Europe. A particular characteristic of Eda Kriseová’s literary language is her use of poetic imagery, while she counterbalances the danger of becoming overly sentimental through the use of sharp language which is critical of society, as well as being colloquial and vulgar. Her descriptions of her environment are moving and poetic, containing imagination and magic. However, her characters often behave as though they are disturbers of this idyll, like a defect on an otherwise beautiful world.  People are only hurt by other people. The countryside, rural rather than urban, is a place for curing, escape and reconciliation. In 1979 Eda Kriseová was awarded the Egon Hostovský Prize. After 1989 she was allowed to lecture at George Washington University in Washington. She has been invited four times to be artist in residence in Germany by the German Ministry of Culture and other institutions. The author often gives readings in German speaking countries. She is a member of the PEN-Club, the Community of Writers, the Kafka Society and the committee of the Central and Eastern European Book Project in Amsterdam.

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This author profile was last updated in 2006.