Ludvík Kundera

Ludvík Kundera (22 March 1920 – 17 August 2010) was a Czech writer, translator, poet, playwright, editor and literary historian. He was a notable exponent of Czech avant-garde literature and a prolific translator of German authors. In 2007, he received the Medal of Merit for service to the Republic. In 2009, he was awarded the Jaroslav Seifert Award, presented by the Charter 77 Foundation. Kundera was a cousin of Czech-French writer Milan Kundera and nephew of the pianist and musicologist also named Ludvík Kundera. Kundera was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia He studied at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague and later continued his studies at Masaryk University in Brno. During World War II, he was abducted to a forced labour in Germany. After the war, he worked as an editor in several newspapers and magazines, including Blok, Rovnost and Host do domu. In 1945, he co-founded the surrealist group Skupina RA (Group RA). His first book of poetry, Konstantina, was published in 1946. That same year he befriended the poet František Halas, whom he considered his teacher and mentor. From the mid-1950s he concentrated solely on writing and translating. From 1968 to 1970 he worked as a dramaturgist in the Mahen Theatre, a part of the National Theatre in Brno. Additionally, he collaborated with the National Theatre as a playwright. In 2005, Mahen Theatre premiered his play about the Czech composer Leoš Janáček.

During the period of normalization (in the 1970s and '80s) Kundera was banned from being published. He left the Mahen Theatre in reaction to the dismissal of his collaborators who openly expressed disagreement with the political transformation in Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring. Because of that, he was labeled undesirable by the communist regime. In 1970 he was expelled from the Communist Party and gradually lost the possibility to continue his cultural activities in Czechoslovakia. To continue his work, he was forced to use pseudonyms. From the 1970s he was an initiator and coordinator of samizdat publishing activities in Czechoslovakia. He focused mainly on translations of German authors, such as Heinrich Böll, Berthold Brecht and Hans Arp. Additionally, he translated important expressionist and dadaist works. A significant part of his work was devoted to the literature of German Romanticism.

Kundera spent a large part of his life in the Moravian town of Kunštát. He died in Boskovice.