Pavla Horáková: The strangeness of burying beetles

– Czechia

Born in 1974 in Plzeň, Pavla Horáková studied translation, interpreting and Serbian studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. She translates from English and Serbian (I. Banks, T. Janowitz, J. Kubert, T. Pynchon, K. Vonnegut, Z. Živković and others) and has worked as an editor of Czech Radio 7’s English-language broadcasts and a translator for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. She wrote three children’s books titled Tajemství Hrobaříků (The Strangeness of Burying Beetles, 2010), Hrobaříci v podzámčí (Burying Beetles under the Castle, 2011) and Hrobaříci a Hrobaři (Burying Beetles and Gravediggers, 2012); two documentary titles: Přišel befel od císaře pána (We Received the Kaiser’s Orders, 2015) and Zum Befehl, pane lajtnant (Zum Befehl, Herr Leutnant, 2018); and two novels – Johana (co-authored with Z. Dostálová and A. Scheinostová, 2018) and Teorie podivnosti (The Theory of Strangeness, 2018), which won the 2019 Magnesia Litera award in prose.