Czech poet, critic, dissident and diplomat Jiří Gruša has died in Germany, where he lived, while undergoing a heart operation. The Prague Post last talked to Gruša in 2009. A transcript of the interview is included below. Gruša was born in Pardubice and later moved to Prague, where he moved in dissident in literary circles. [...]

Poet, essayist and art historian Věra Jirousová died suddenly at the age of 67 Feb. 27. The writer was the first wife of poet and dissident Ivan Martin Jirous, and was herself an important member of the Czech underground around the art rock band The Plastic People of the Universe.

Arnošt Lustig, a respected Czech writer who survived Auschwitz, Theresienstadt and Dachau, died in Prague Sat. February 26 after a five year battle with lung cancer.

The Paris Review has released all of its author interviews free on its website. Stein’s radical decision to do so puts more than 50 years of interviews with leading novelists, poets and critics – an invaluable resource – at the disposal of online readers.

Read about Jachym Topol’s latest novel Chladnou Zemí, Cold Land, for which he won the Jaroslav Seifert Prize, in the Oct. 13 issue of The Prague Post. Topol sat down with The Prague Post recently at a cafe in Smíchov to discuss the Seifert Prize, his approach to history, and his place in Czech literature.

If you have read any contemporary Czech novels in English, you have probably read the words of American translator Alex Zucker. Zucker has translated more than a dozen works of contemporary Czech literature, most recently Case Closed by Patrik Ouředník. Zucker sat down with The Prague Post recently on his first return to Prague in several years.

If you have read any contemporary Czech novels in English, you have probably read the words of American translator Alex Zucker. Zucker has translated more than a dozen books of contemporary Czech literature, most recently Case Closed by Patrik Ourednik. Zucker sat down with The Prague Post recently on his first return to Prague in several years.

Although much of the political commentary in the book is now outdated, Enzensberger’s cultural observations are as sensitive and perceptive now as they were two decades ago.