Slovak Literature in English Translation

Miroslav Válek (1927-1971) was one of the leading figures in Slovak poetry in the 1960s. He started studying economics at university, but dropped out and began working as an editor with various periodicals. One of a generation of poets who radically changed the artistic nature of Slovak poetry, Válek made his name between 1959 and 1965 with the collections Dotyky (Touches, 1959), Príťažlivosť (Attraction, 1961), Nepokoj (1963, Restlessness), and Milovanie v husej koži (Making Love in a Goose Skin, 1965), and  four later volumes.  From 1962 to 1966 he was editor-in-chief of the literary monthly Mladá tvorba, and later he co-founded and edited the literary monthly Romboid. Politically active all his life, he served as Chairman of the Slovak Writers’ Union (1967-1968), Chairman of the Czechoslovak Writers’ Union (1988-1989), and Slovakia’s Minister of Culture from 1969 to 1988. Válek remained in office throughout the normalization era that followed the crushing of the Prague Spring, when many authors were banned and persecuted, although he occasionally extended a helping hand to a proscribed writer.