Jan Novák (writer)
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Jan Novák (born April 4, 1953, in
Kolín Kolín (; ) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument reservations, urban monume ...
) is a Czech-American writer, screenwriter and playwright. He writes in both
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...
and
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...
, occasionally translating his work. He has received awards in both the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and the
Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
. He has worked closely with such figures as
Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...
and
Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech Americans, Czech-American film film director, director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the Uni ...
.


Early life and education

His family fled
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
in 1969, after his father was discovered to have committed embezzlement. They escaped to a refugee camp in
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, where after corresponding with members of the large Czech-American community in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, they were able to emigrate to
Cicero, Illinois Cicero is a town in Cook County, Illinois, United States, and a suburb of Chicago. As of the 2020 census, the population was 85,268, making it the 11th-most populous municipality in Illinois. The town is named after Marcus Tullius Cicero, a R ...
. After high school, he initially attended
Shimer College Shimer Great Books School ( ) is a Classic_book#University_programs, Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, or ...
, a small Great Books college then located in Mount Carroll. He subsequently attended and graduated from the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
, receiving bachelor's and master's degrees. In 2008, he returned to his native Czech Republic and has been writing in Czech since 2009.


Literary career

Novák's first published story was the winning entry in a short-story contest by the '' University of Chicago Maroon'', which he originally wrote in Czech and then translated into English. The story caught the attention of Czech-American publisher
Josef Škvorecký Josef Škvorecký (; September 27, 1924 – January 3, 2012) was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the ...
, who published Novák's debut collection of short stories, ''Striptease Chicago'' (). The stories in the collection depict the lives of Czech immigrants in America with an ironic sensibility. The stories also showed a propensity for
Czenglish Czenglish, a portmanteau of the words Czech and English, refers to the interlanguage of English heavily influenced by Czech pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar or syntax spoken by learners of English as a second language. The term ''Czenglish'' ...
, a mixing of the Czech and English languages. His other works in this period were written solely in English. His 1985 novel ''The Willys Dream Kit'', ( ) draws on family experience and depicts his father's life story from his youth during the Nazi occupation to death in the USA. It was very favorably received, winning the
Carl Sandburg Award Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg w ...
for Chicago authors and the Friends of Literature Award. The foreword to the Czech edition was written by
Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...
. His second novel ''The Grand Life'' (Poseidon Press, 1987), again partly inspired by his own experiences (the hero is a middle manager at a Chicago telephone company), was also favorably received, but not a commercial success. Venturing into nonfiction, he wrote ''Commies, Crooks, Gypsies, Spooks and Poets'' (1995). It's his "adventure in the border zone of genres", recounting a year he spent in Prague in 1992–3, where he moved to teach his grade-school children Czech. It received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for non-fiction in 1995. Novák's ''So Far So Good'', an extensive literary treatment of the story of the Mašín brothers who escaped to West Berlin in 1953, was originally written in English but was first published translated into Czech as "Zatím dobrý". It won the
Magnesia Litera Magnesia Litera is an annual literary award, book award held in the Czech Republic since 2002. The prize covers all literary genres in eight genre categories: prose, poetry, children's literature, children's book (since 2004), non-fiction, essay/jo ...
award for book of the year in 2005. In 2018, it was finally published in English by Slavica Press. In 2007, he wrote another novel, "Grandpa", which was only published in a Czech translation (Děda) (Bookman, ISBN 80-903455-6-5), but was awarded the Josef Škvorecký Prize. Switching to Czech in 2009, he published a book of interviews with prominent Czech-Americans, titled ''On the Other Side of the Pond'' (Franz Kafka Publishing House), examining the life stories of
Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech Americans, Czech-American film film director, director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the Uni ...
,
Dominik Hašek Dominik Hašek (, ; born 29 January 1965) is a Czech former ice hockey goaltender who played 16 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL), mostly for the Buffalo Sabres. Widely regarded as one of the best goaltenders in history, Hašek also p ...
, Lubomír Kaválek,
Antonín Kratochvíl Antonín Kratochvíl (also written Antonin Kratochvil; born 12 April 1947) is a Czech-born American photojournalist. He is a founding member of VII Photo Agency. Life and work Kratochvíl was born in 1947 in Lovosice, Czechoslovakia. He gained ...
, Milan Sova and Josef Mašín. (ISBN 978-80-86911-25-00)In 2011 in Czech, he published another novel, "Alaska or the story of a story" (ISBN 978-80-259-0067-3). An extensive interview with John Bok, "A Life Beyond Category" was published in 2015 (ISBN 978-80-257-1431-7). In 2020 Novak wrote a voluminous biography of Milan Kundera, "Kundera, His Czech Life and Times", causing a literary scandal in the Czech letters (ISBN 978-80-2573-215-1). In 2022, Novak published "Underpaid, but Armed", an autobiographical report on his three year stint as an armored carrier in Chicago at the beginning of the century (ISBN 978-80-257-3897-9). Novak is also a co-author with Lubomir Kavalek of his memoir "Life at Play", which came out in 2023 and received the Egon Ervin Kisch Award (ISBN 978-80-257-4107-8). As of 2022, the renown Prague publishing house Argo has been publishing Novak's Collected Works.


Film career

As a screenwriter, Novák worked with
Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech Americans, Czech-American film film director, director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the Uni ...
on the film ''Valmont''. He is also co-author of Forman's autobiography called "Turnaround" (Villard Books 1994 (ISBN 978-0679400639), which was translated into 22 languages. The Czech version, called "What Do I Know?" was translated by Jiri Josek (Atlantis 1994, ).He wrote the script for the Czech film ''
Báječná léta pod psa ''Báječná léta pod psa'' (English: ''Those Wonderful Years That Sucked'') is a 1997 Czech comedy drama film adapted from the book of the same title by Michal Viewegh. Directed by Petr Nikolaev and starring Libuše Šafránková, Ondřej V ...
'' ("The Wonderful Years That Sucked"), which topped the Czech box office in 1997. He co-wrote the screenplay for "Nejasná zpráva o konci světa"
An ambiguous report about the end of the world ''An Ambiguous Report About the End of the World'' () is a 1997 Czech film directed by Juraj Jakubisko. It is a symbolic story of ill-fated love set in central Europe. Synopsis A magical and realistic vision of an unbalanced world takes place in ...
, directed by Juraj Jakubisko. Novak is the screenwriter of "Nedodržaný sľub" ("Broken Promise"), based on a true story of a Jewish boy who survived the Holocaust by playing soccer brilliantly, which was nominated for the foreign Oscar by Slovakia in 2009. He has made two documentary films about
Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...
, together with his son Adam. In 2005 they shot the documentary "Občan Havel jede na dovolenou", (''Citizen Václav Havel Goes on Vacation''), recounting a vacation taken by the dissident Havel in 1985 who was followed by some 300 secret police agents in the course of a week, though they also showed Havel the way to his next destination when he got lost. This was followed in 2009 by the film "Občan Havel přikuluje", (''Citizen Havel is Rolling the Empty Barrels''), a report on the creation and context of Havel's one-act play "Audience", which received a nomination for the Czech Lion Award. Novak and his son also shot a documentary comedy, entitled "Pušky, puky, pivo a psi", ("Guns, Pucks, Beer and Dogs"), recounting the follies of the best ice hockey players drafted into the Czechoslovak army. In 2023, with Martin Froyda, Novak documented the Masin brothers' story in a feature, called "Útěk do Berlína", ("Escape to Berlin"). In 2009, for one semester, he taught screenwriting at the
Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague () or FAMU is a film school in Prague, Czech Republic, founded in 1946 as one of three branches of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. It is the fifth oldest film school in ...
.


Playwriting career

Novák's first play was "Bohemian Heaven," which opened at the Provincetown Playhouse in 1980; it paints a satirical portrait of a newly arrived Czech immigrant family in Cicero, Illinois. His play "Alaska," originally commissioned for Chicago's
Goodman Theater Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago, Illinois, Chicago's Chicago Loop, Loop. A major part of the Theater in Chicago, Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organizatio ...
, was performed in
Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...
in 1994. In 2000, the Astorka theater in
Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
, Slovakia, produced his "Vražda sekerou ve Sv. Petěrburgu", ("An Ax Murder in St. Petersburg)," a dramatic adaptation of the ax murder in
Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...
's ''Crime and Punishment'' and kept it in its repertory for the next ten years. In. In 2009, the Astorka theater produced Novak's play "Tolstoj a peníze", ("Tolstoy and Money") and played it in repertory for eight years. Novák also translated into English Václav Havel's play ''
Audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...
'', '' Unveiling'', ''
Protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...
'' and '' The Garden Party'' (alternatively titled ''Office Party''). These were performed widely around the US and Canada. His one-act plays were published in 2009 in a bilingual edition under the title "Citizen Vanek / Vanek Citizen ". They were published in the U. S. in 2012 by Theater 61 Press under the title "The Vanek Plays", which edition also included Novák's translation of Havel's modern Vanek sequel, '' Dozens of Cousins''.


Graphic Novels

Beginning in 2016, Novak became a librettist for graphic novels. With the Czech artist Jaromirem 99 drawing the pictures, they published "Zátopek", a biography of the legendary Czechoslovak long-distance runner, which was subsequently published in 10 languages and remains one of the most popular comic books in the Czech Republic. In 2018, they produced a comic-book version of "Zatím dobrý" ("So Far, So Good") and in 2020 "Čáslavská", a comic book biography of the winner of seven Olympic gold medals in gymnastics who ended up a cleaning lady under the neo-Stalinist regime in the Czechoslovakia of 1970's.


References


External links

* *
Radio Prague interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Novak, Jan Living people 1953 births 20th-century Czech novelists Czech male novelists 20th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights Czech male dramatists and playwrights Czech screenwriters Czech male screenwriters Magnesia Litera winners University of Chicago alumni Shimer College alumni Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States Writers from Kolín Academic staff of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague