Slovak Literature in English Translation

Dušan Mitana (1946 – 2019) studied television and film writing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, but he left the university when his thesis advisor was removed in the wake of the political changes after 1968.  Mitana then worked for two of the most prominent literary journals in Czechoslovakia, Mladá tvorba and Romboid, and from 1975 on he was a freelance writer.  In 1989 he became one of the founding members of the Slovak chapter of PEN.  His works, which include more than a dozen books of prose, two collections of poetry, and several scripts, span a fifty-year period and have been translated and published in more than twenty countries.  Mitana has been a cult figure of Slovak literature, and his works continue to capture the imagination of new generations of readers.