Radek Malý

writer, translator, and literary historian

Radek Malý (* 1977) is a writer, translator, and literary historian. He has written several acclaimed poetry collections as well as numerous children’s books, radio plays, and scholarly publications. He has translated various literary works into Czech, including the poetry of Georg Trakl, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Paul Celan as well as Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. He is also the author of a modern Czech translation of Goethe’s Faust, which he created in 2018 for a production by the National Theatre. Malý teaches at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague. A number of his books for children and young adults have been published in English, including a series of large-format illustrated atlases about animals and Franz Kafka: A Man of His Time and Our Own (2017), an illustrated primer about the life and work of the famous Prague author. Malý has earned many accolades for his work, including the Jiří Orten Award and the Magnesia Litera, which he won once in 2005 for poetry and again in 2011 for children’s literature.