Radka Denemarková

born 1968
novelist, dramatist, TV screenplay writer, translator, essayist, teacher of creative writing

Having published her first work of fiction in 2005, Radka Denemarková is now the author of three novels. Her works have been published in Hungary, Poland, Germany and Canada (in English), with the rights sold to Slovenia and Bulgaria.

The only Czech writer to have received the prestigious Magnesia Litera literary prize twice - for prose (Money from Hitler / Peníze od Hitlera, 2007) and in the non-fiction category (You Will not be Afraid of Death: The Story of Petr Lébl / Smrt nebudeš se báti aneb Příběh Petra Lébla, 2009). For the latter title she was also shortlisted for the 2009 Josef Škvorecký Prize.

Radka Denemarková studied German and Czech Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, gaining her doctorate in 1997. She worked as a researcher at the Institute for Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and was dramatic advisor at the Divadlo Na zábradlí theatre in Prague. In 1998, she published a monograph about the theatre and film director Evald Schorm, called Sám sobě nepřítelem / Being My Own Enemy, and she is also the author of Ohlédnutí za Milenou Honzíkovou /Remembering Milena Honzíková (in: Dopis zmizelému / Letter to the One Who Disappeared, Torst, 2003).

She is a translator from the German, translating mainly studies, essays, and drama (eg., Bertolt Brecht, Elizabeth Hauptmann, Roland Schimmelpfennig, David Gieselmann, Thomas Bernhard, Franz Xaver Kroetz), but also fiction; in 2010 her translation of Austrian author Michael Stavarić's novel Stillborn will be published in Czech by Labyrint under the title Mrtvorozená Eliška Frankesteinová. She has worked as a dramatic advisor on television documentaries about famous figures of the theatre (eg., Evald Schorm, Alfréd Radok, Emil František Burian, Jindřich Honzl, František Tröster, Bohuslav Reynek). Her articles, reviews and essays often appear in leading Czech literary journals such as Tvar, Host, Salon, and Divadelní noviny.

Most recently, Radka Denemarková completed the first version of a film script based on her novel Money from Hitler and a dramatisation of the same novel. (The theatre adaptation was premiered at Švandovo divadlo in Prague on 9th January 2010). She is also working on her third work of fiction with the working title Kobolt (to be published in Czech by Host in autumn 2010) and translations of two novels by the most recent Nobel prizewinner, Herta Müller. Denemarková´s first theatre play Spací vady / The Disturbances of Sleep will be premiered in autumn 2010 at the Prague theatre Divadlo Na zábradlí. Her translation of Fritz Kater's A tančit! / Let´s Dance Now will be premiered at the same theatre on 19th December 2010.

See also the web pages of Radka Denemarková´s German and Canadian publishers: