Jáchym Topol
Jáchym Topol was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to Josef Topol, Czech playwright, poet, and translator of Shakespeare, and Jiřina Topolová, daughter of the famous Czech Catholic writer Karel Schulz.
Topol's writing began with lyrics for the rock band Psí vojáci, led by his younger brother, Filip, in the late '70s and early '80s. In 1982, he cofounded the samizdat magazine Violit, and in 1985 Revolver Revue, a samizdat review that specialized in modern Czech writing.
Because of his father's dissident activities, Topol was not allowed to go to university. After graduating from gymnasium he worked as a stoker, stocker, construction worker, and coal deliveryman. Several times he was imprisoned for short periods, both for his samizdat publishing
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Bruce Chatwin
Charles Bruce Chatwin was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982).
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In 1972, Chatwin interviewed the 93-year-old architect and designer Eileen Gray in her Paris salon, where he noticed a map of the area of South America called Patagonia, which she had painted. "I've always wanted to go there," Bruce told her. "So have I," she replied, "go there for me." Two years later in November 1974, Chatwin flew out to Lima in Peru, and reached Patagonia a month later. When he arrived, he left the newspaper with a telegram: "Have gone to Patagonia." He spent six months in the area, a trip which resulted in the book In Patagonia (1977). This work established his reputation as -
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Jiří Kratochvil
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Péter Nádas
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Péter Nádas was born in Budapest, as the son of a high-ranking party functionary. Nádas's grandfather, Moritz Grünfeld, changed his name into Hungarian, which was considered a scandal in the family. Nádas's youth was shadowed by the loss of his parents. Nádas's mother died of cancer when he was young and his father committed suicide. At the age of 16 his uncle gave him a camera, and after dropping out of school Nádas turned to photojournalism. During the late 1960s and early -
Allen Ginsberg
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Franz Kafka
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Jewish middle-class family of this major fiction writer of the 20th century spoke German. People consider his unique body of much incomplete writing, mainly published posthumously, among the most influential in European literature.
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Kundera wrote in Czech and French. He revises the French translations of all his books; people therefore consider these original works as not translations. He is best known for his novels, including The Joke (1967), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), all of which exhibit his extreme though often comical skepticism. -
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Mircea Cărtărescu
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Born in Bucharest, he graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Letters, Department of Romanian Language And Literature, in 1980. Between 1980 and 1989 he worked as a Romanian language teacher, and then he worked at the Writers Union and as an editor at the Caiete Critice magazine. In 1991 he became a lecturer at the Chair of Romanian Literary History, part of the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters. As of 2010, he is an associate professor. Between 1994-1995 he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Amsterdam.
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Bohumil Hrabal
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Hrabal received a Law degree from Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s on.
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Varlam Shalamov
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Alternate spellings of his name:
Варлам Шаламов
Varlam Chalamov
Warłam Szałamow
Warlam Schalamow
V. T. Shalamov
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Karel Hynek Mácha
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Mácha's genius was discovered and glorified much later by the poets and novelists of the 1850s generation (for example Jan Neruda, Vítězslav Hálek, Karolina Světlá) and Máj is now regarded as the classic work of Czech Romanticism, and is considered one of the best Czech poems ever written.
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Karel Čapek
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(Arabic: كارل تشابك) (Hebrew: קארל צ'אפק) (Japanese: 카렐 차페크) (Russian: Карел Чапек) -
Karel Jaromír Erben
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He was born on November 7, 1811 in Miletín u Jičína. He went to college in Hradec Králové. Then, in 1831, he went to Prague where he studied philosophy and later law. He started working in the National Museum (Národní muzeum) with František Palacký in 1843. He became editor of a Prague's newspaper in 1848. Two years later, in 1850, he became archives' secretary of the National Museum. He died on November 21, 1870 of tuberculosis. -
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Václav Hrabě
Czech poet and writer, and the most important member of the Beat Generation in former Czechoslovakia. Hrabě was born in Příbram to Jan Hrabě and Magdalena Kalinová. He spent his childhood and youth in Lochovice and attended a high school in nearby Hořovice. He graduated in 1957 and moved to Prague, where he continued his education at the Faculty of Pedagogy, studying Czech language and History. After graduation from the university in 1961 he served two years in the army. Upon his discharge he worked in a variety of jobs - as laborer, librarian, writer for the literary magazine Tvář (Face), and finally as teacher. Hrabě's untimely death at the age of twenty-five (he died in his sleep, accidentally poisoned by carbon monoxide), robbed Czech l
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Alena Mornštajnová
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Édouard Louis
Édouard Louis is a French writer born October 30, 1992. Édouard Louis, born Eddy Bellegueule, grew up in Hallencourt (Somme) before entering theater class at the Lycée Madeleine Michelis in Amiens. From 2008 to 2010 he was a delegate of the Amiens Academy to the National Council for High School Life, then studied history at the University of Picardy.
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From 2011, he is pursuing sociology studies at the ENS in the rue d'Ulm. In 2013, he obtained a name change and became Édouard Louis.
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Marek Torčík
Marek Torčík (Přerov, 1993) je český spisovatel a publicista. Žije v Praze, vystudoval Anglofonní literaturu a kulturu na Karlově univerzitě. Debutoval básnickou sbírkou Rhizomy (2016). V roce 2018 a 2020 se stal jedním z desítky finalistů v česko-slovenské soutěži Básne SK/CZ". V roce 2023 vydal románovou prvotinu Rozložíš paměť. Za ni získal v roce 2024 Cenu Magnesia Litera za prózu a Cenu Jiřího Ortena pro autory a autorky do třiceti let.
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Ondjaki
Ndalu de Almeida (born 1977) is a writer from Angola, writing under the pen name Ondjaki. He lives in Luanda, the capital of the country, and has written poetry, children's books, short stories, novels, drama and film scripts.
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Ondjaki studied sociology at the University of Lisbon, and wrote his graduation paper about Angolan writer Luandino Vieira. His literary debut came in 2002 with the novella O Assobiador (The Whistler), which was followed up with the childhood memoir Bom dia camaradas (Good Morning, Comrades) in 2003. To date (2010) he has published four novels, three collections of short stories, two collections of poetry and three children's books. His books have been translated to French, Spanish, Italian, German, English, Chinese an -
Inga Gaile
Dzejniece un rakstniece. Dzimusi 1976. gadā Rīgā. Beigusi Rīgas Centra humanitāro ģimnāziju (1993), studējusi literatūras teoriju, vēsturi un kritiku, kā arī teātra, kino un TV dramaturģiju Latvijas Kultūras akadēmijā.
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Saņēmusi Klāva Elsberga prēmiju (1999), Annas Dagdas fonda balva (2004), Ojāra Vācieša prēmiju (2004, 2012), Dzejas dienu balvu (2007) un žurnāla "Latvju Teksti" balvu (2012). 2012. gadā saņēmusi Prozas lasījumu galveno balvu par stāstu "Piena ceļi". Kā arī Literatūras gada balvu par dzejoļu krājumu "Vai otrā grupa mani dzird?". Prozā debitējusi ar romānu "Stikli", kuram 2019. gadā sekoja "Skaistās". Ir sarakstījusi arī detektīvromānu "Neredzamie" un izdevniecībā Mansards izdots stāstu krājums "Piena ceļi".
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Bora Ćosić
Bora Ćosić is a Serbian, Croatian and Yugoslav novelist, essayist, translator and opinionated intellectual.
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He was born in Zagreb in 1932, He lived most of his life in Belgrade until 1991, when he moved to Rovinj and later to Berlin, where he currently resides. A recipient of multiple awards, including the Nin Prize, he is known for his satirical and humorous style, exemplified in his cult novel Uloga moje porodice u svetskoj revoluciji (t. My Family's Role in the World Revolution). Ćosić is recognized as an important voice from the former Yugoslavia. -
Petr Šabach
Český spisovatel, známý svými humoristickými romány a povídkami. Jeho otec byl voják z povolání.
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Šabach od roku 1966 studoval Střední knihovnickou školu, po 1. ročníku přestoupil na gymnázium, z něhož byl roku 1969 vyloučen, externě přijat zpět na SKŠ, kde v roce 1974 maturoval. Následovalo dálkové studium kulturologie na filozofické fakultě UK (obor absolvoval 1979).
Od roku 1974, do doby, kdy odešel na volnou nohu, vystřídal různá povolání (noční hlídač, metodik kulturního domu v Domě u Kamenného zvonu aj.). Po roce 2000 vyučoval tvůrčí psaní na Literární akademii (Soukromá vysoká škola Josefa Škvoreckého v Praze). Petr Šabach byl členem neformálního hospodského společenství Zlatá Praha.
Zemřel po krátké, těžké nemoci. -
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