Slovak Literature in English Translation

Martin Milan Šimečka is a writer and journalist.  As a son of a leading dissident persecuted and imprisoned under the communist regime, he was denied access to university education and worked as a manual labourer. He started writing short stories and novellas in the 1980s, and being banned from publishing officially, he contributed to samizdat (underground) journals. His novella Žabí rok (Year of the Frog) appeared in the samizdat edition “Petlice” in 1983, followed by Džin (The Genie). During the Velvet Revolution of November 1989, he co-founded the movement Public Against Violence, and the independent publishing house Archa. He later served as editor-in-chief of several newspapers including the weekly Domino-forum, the daily SME, and the Czech weekly Respekt, and is currently a commentator for the Slovak daily Denník N. Since the late 1990s he has published several books of essays and nonfiction, most recently the collection of essays Výnimočný stav (2025, State of Emergency).