Alena Mornštajnová: Years, Hana and the others
– Czechia
Born in Valašské Meziříčí in 1963, Hana Mornštajnová studied English and Czech languages at the University of Ostrava. She has worked as a teacher of English and a translator. She has published four novels (Slepá mapa/A Blank Map, 2013; Hotýlek/Hotel, 2015; Hana, 2017; and Tiché roky/Silent Years, 2019), as well as the children’s book Strašidýlko Stráša (Spooky Stráša, 2018). She counts among the most successful Czech writers in the post-1989 era. “Books have always been part of my life, even in my childhood I’d come up with stories and develop them into books. Unfortunately, our lives do not always go as planned, so I got to fulfilling my dreams only later. But when I look back at my life, I see that everything I’ve ever done somehow pointed to my present-day writing,” she says.