Boučková Tereza

Tereza Boučková (b. 1957) is an internationally acclaimed bestselling author and the daughter of writer Pavel Kohout, a co-founder and signatory of Charter 77. Boučková, too, signed Charter 77, aged twenty. The communist regime punished her for this by barring her from higher education, confiscating her passport, allowing her to work only as a cleaner, and doing everything in its power to try to force her out of socialist Czechoslovakia.

Since 1989, in addition to raising three sons—two adopted and one biological—Boučková has devoted her energies to writing, publishing eight books of prose and journalism, many of which have been published abroad. She also writes screenplays and scripts for cinema and stage. Rok kohouta [The Year of the Rooster], her most successful novel to date, explores the profound crisis in her life following the dramatic disintegration of her adoptive family. Her latest novel, Dům v Matoušově ulici [The House on Matoušova Street], tells a hundred-year story of a Prague house, reflecting the turbulent history of the 20th century and also what is happening today.

Works translated into: Hungarian, Arabic, Slovenian, Spanish, Croatian, Dutch, Polish, Bulgarian, Italian, Albanian.