Monika Zgustova is an award winning author (Amat Piniella Award for the best novel of the year, Gratias Agit, and The City of Barcelona awards among others) whose works (six novels, a volume of short stories, two plays, a biography and a dictionary) have been translated into nine languages (her American publishers are Feminist Press CUNY and Open Road). She was born in Prague. In the 1970s and 1980s, she studied comparative literature in the United States (University of Illinois and University of Chicago). She then moved to Barcelona, where she writes for El Pais and La Vanguardia. As a translator of Czech and Russian literature into Spanish and Catalan–-including the writing of Havel, Kundera, Hrabal, Hasek, Dostoevsky, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, and Babel–-Zgustova is credited with bringing major twentieth-century writers into Spain.
Monika Zgustová
Articles by Monika Zgustová
Thursday March 27
The Silent Woman
I stuck the knifepoint into one of the spaces between my black-gloved fingers. Then into the space between the fingers next to it . . . Several men tensely got up from their chairs . . . as if they were all set to rush to my assistance.
Thursday April 21
Ice
12 Dear Mama, Last Saturday there was a dance in the canteen. Those prisoners who knew how to play an instrument brought them along and played something for us. I was wearing the light grey dress I left home in, do you remember it, Mama? Whatever happened to Bill’s insignia, that I gave to Bela