Michal Ajvaz

Michal Ajvaz was born in 1949 in Prague, his father was a Crimean Karaim and his mother was an Austrian Czech. He graduated from Charles University in 1973. During the 1970s and 1980s Ajvaz worked at various jobs, as a janitor, night watchman, and pump attendant and did not publish his first book until 1989. Currently he is a researcher in philosophy at Prague's Center for Theoretical Studies of Charles University and Academy of Science of Czech Republik. He published eight works of fiction and...See more

Michal Ajvaz was born in 1949 in Prague, his father was a Crimean Karaim and his mother was an Austrian Czech. He graduated from Charles University in 1973. During the 1970s and 1980s Ajvaz worked at various jobs, as a janitor, night watchman, and pump attendant and did not publish his first book until 1989. Currently he is a researcher in philosophy at Prague's Center for Theoretical Studies of Charles University and Academy of Science of Czech Republik. He published eight works of fiction and also an essay on Jacques Derrida, a book about Edmund Husserl´s philosophy, as well as a book-length meditation on Jorge Luis Borges called The Dreams of Grammars , the Glow of Letters , and a philosophical study, Jungle of Light: Meditations on Seeing . He was awarded Jaroslav Seifert´s Prize and Magnesia Litera Prize. His books of fiction have been published in fifteen languages. See less