Pavel Švanda: A monster, sage and an intellectual

– Czechia

Born in 1936 in Znojmo, Pavel Švanda is an author of spiritual poetry, philosophical prose and essays, as well as a cultural journalist. He is a member of the Thirty-Sixers group. He studied art history at Masaryk University in Brno, but did not finish his studies. In the 1960s, he worked as a cinema manager and editor of the Host do domu magazine. During the “Normalisation” period he went through a number of manual professions and after the velvet revolution in 1989 he became a lecturer at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. He wrote fifteen books including Anonymní povídky (Anonymous Short Stories, 1967), Na obou březích (On Both Banks, 1996), Monstrum a jiná domácí zvířata (The Monster and Other Domestic Animals, 2002), Cestou z Kainova pohřbu (Journey from Cain’s Funeral, 2004), Paměť esejisty (Memory of the Essayist, 2006), O intelektuálovi, který se necítí dobře (The Intellectual Who Does Not Feel Well, 2012) and Mudrc bělmem (Sage of the White, 2016).