Jan Trefulka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jan Trefulka (15 May 1929 – 22 November 2012) was a Czech writer, translator, literary critic and publicist.
Jan Trefulka | |
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| Born | 15 May 1929 Brno, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | 22 November 2012 (aged 83) Brno, Czech Republic |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Czech |
Trefulka was born in Brno, Czech Republic, where he also died.[1] He attended school with Milan Kundera and the pair remained lifelong friends.
Critical of the communist regime, in 1950 he was expelled from the Czechoslovakian Communist Party for "anti-party activities" along with Kundera. At the same time he was expelled from Charles University in Prague where he was studying literature and aesthetics. Trefulka wrote about his run-in with the communist party in his first novella Pršelo jim štestí (Happiness Rained on Them, 1962). Trefulka was involved with Samizdat - the publishing and distributing of censored literature under communist rule, and was a signatory of Charter 77.
Trefulka found it difficult to find work in the country after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He spent time unemployed and working as a manual labourer.
After the Velvet Revolution and the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, he became more active in public life, becoming president of the Association of Moravian-Silesian Writers and a member of the first Czech Television Council.
