Novák Jan

Jan Novák (b. 1953) is a Czech-American writer, playwright, screenwriter, translator and documentary filmmaker. In 1969, he emigrated with his parents to the United States, where he graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Humanities. For three years he worked as an armed courier, delivering money for United Armored Services; he describes this in the prose work Těžký prachy [Heavy Money] (2022). Since 2008, he has lived in Prague, writing in English and Czech.

Novák was discovered as a writer by Josef Škvorecký, whose 68 Publishers in Toronto released Novák’s collection of short stories Striptease Chicago (1983) and successful novel The Willys Dream Kit (1985); Novák wrote the latter in English, and it won the Carl Sandburg Award. It was followed by the novel The Grand Life (1987) and the memoir Commies, Crooks, Gypsies, Spooks & Poets (1995), which also received the Carl Sandburg Award.

Novák worked with Oscar-winning director Miloš Forman on the film Valmont and is co-author of Forman’s autobiography Turnaround (1994). His most successful work to date is the novel Zatím dobrý [So Far So Good] (2004); about the dramatic escape of the Mašín brothers to West Berlin in October 1953, it was named Magnesia Litera Book of the Year in 2004. Novák would go on to rework this “greatest story of the Cold War” for the documentary film Útěk do Berlína [Escape to Berlin] (2024). His autobiographical novel Děda [Grandpa] (2006), which is being translated into German by Mitteldeutscher Verlag, is a winner of the Josef Škvorecký Prize. In 2020, Novák published Milan Kundera: Český život a doba [Kundera: His Czech Life and Times], a critical biography of the celebrated author that sparked months of debate on the Czech literary scene. Rozehrany život [Life at Play] (2023), a memoir by chess grandmaster Lubomír Kaválek of which Novák is co-author, won the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize.

Novák’s stage plays include Tolstoj a peníze [Tolstoy and Money]. Most notable among his successful comics, which he co-authors with artist Jaromír 99, are Zátopek [Zátopek] (2016), Zatím dobrý [So Far So Good] (2018), and Čáslavská [Čáslavská] (2020). Novák and his son Adam are the filmmakers behind the documentaries Občan Havel jede na dovolnou [Citizen Václav Havel Goes on Vacation] (2005) and Občan Havel příkuluje [Citizen Václav Havel Is Rolling Empty Barrels] (2009). Novák has also translated Havel’s plays into English.

Works translated into 22 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese.