Zdena Salivarová 1933 - 2025

Czech Writer and Translator

Zdena was born in Prague in 1933.

She attended the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and graduated with a degree in film and television dramaturgy. In the sixties she worked as a singer and actress in Laterana Magica, the world’s first multi-media theatre combining live actors, dance and music with film projections. She also performed at the Paravan Theatre, which was a famous 1960’s literary cabaret and small theatre in Prague.

In 1968, she emigrated with her husband Josef Škvorecký to the United States. A year later, she accompanied her husband on a lecturing tour of the United States, after which they moved to Toronto.

Zdena made her literary debut in 1968 with Pánská jízda, a collection of short stories. This was followed by her semi-autobiographic novel Honzlová.

In 1971, the couple founded the acclaimed “68 Publishers,” where they published Czech books that were banned in their native country Czechoslovakia.  Zdena and Josef devoted 20 years to this project, not only choosing books but actually printing them, mostly for a North-American public, in their English translation and/or original language. Many of those books traveled secretly back to the communist homeland.

Together, they recounted the history of the “68 Publishers” in an edition entitled Samožerbuch, which appeared in 1977.

Their publishing company closed in 1993. With the peaceful anti-communist “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia, a publisher of banned books in Czech was no longer needed.

By the end, “68 Publishers” had published 227 books, a remarkable contribution to literature.

Awards and Honours

• Egon Hostorsky Award (1976)
• Order of the White Lion, together with her husband, for promoting Czech literature in the world (1990)
• Honorary Doctorate in Letters, University of Toronto (1992)